


jam #01: The Kidnapped Friend

by PokeNirvash



Series: Kinky Kunoichi [1]
Category: Jam-Orbital, Original Work
Genre: Bondage, Gen, High School Delinquents, Jam-Gagging, Kidnapping, Lawlharem, Over-the-Nose (OTN) Masks, Tokyo (City), Yakuza, emotional breakdown, kunoichi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 17:18:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19674826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeNirvash/pseuds/PokeNirvash
Summary: Shin Kizuka’s life is chaotic. At least, it is if you solely focus on his delinquent peers and the quintet of classmates who act as his wannabe harem. Luckily for him, his childhood friend Muchise is enough to make the chaos more of an annoyance than the gold standard. But when tragedy strikes the night he plans on confessing his love, how will he respond to the supposed chaos’s reactions surrounding his own disbelief?





	1. Prologue

It was night time in the city of Tokyo. On this night in particular, the cloudless sky hanging above the extensive metropolis took on a greenish hue, the city lights providing that very tinge blocking out the stars as they usually did. But for all the illumination the skyline provided – indoor lights, outdoor lights, and streetlamps alike – few sounds made up the amalgam associated with a city at night. The faint buzzing of the lights, plus the humming of car motors and the occasional horn blare, were the only noises that characterized this late evening, in what could be heard throughout its breadth overall.

But certain parts spoke different when up close. One area was rife with distinct sounds, and imagery to match. A sword swinging forward, slicing the air. That sword clashing with another blade brought up to block the incoming attack. The defending blade going on the offense, and attacking the sword that charged forth at it first. And a submachine gun firing multiple rounds in succession, separated from the adjacent duel.

********

Elsewhere in town, there was a club, situated in a strip of buildings lining a street. The outside walls were brick, and the neon sign hanging on the dark red façade bore the establishment’s name: CLUB 拙者, or Club Sessha, the English small and the kanji big, glowing red and surrounded by a rectangular border whose only missing piece was where the “CLUB” was situated. Besides the buzz of the neon sign, the ringing of a bell from the door leading in broke the silence of the outside, followed up by a woman’s voice.

“I’m heading out!”

“Alright,” a gruff-sounding older man called out from inside the building. “Be careful out there!”

“I will!” she called back, head turned toward the door as it shut behind her. She turned it back and stepped out onto the portion of sidewalk between the building and street.

The woman appeared to be in her early 20s, mature for her age but still young. Her light brown hair was long and went down to her mid-back, a collection of strands draping down over either shoulder. She wore a grey V-neck T-shirt with very short sleeves that stretched around her large breasts, tight-fitting denim jeans, and a pair of black Mary Janes. She had a nondescript handbag with her also, her right arm sticking through the holding straps. With a smile, she pulled out her smartphone, bearing a peach body, and looked down at the screen, typing up a message with just her left thumb. Once she finished, she pressed the send button, the message popping up in a grey speech bubble on the left side.

仕事を出掛けました。すぐに家に帰るだろう

Just got out of work. I’ll be home soon.

A few seconds passed before a reply came up in a blue speech bubble from the right.

オーケー、またね〜 (´ε `)♡

Okay, see you there~.

The girl chuckled softly at the kaomoji, sweetly smiling to match her vocal response.

********

At the same time, the sounds of battle persisted, still in that indeterminate urban space. Two more swords clashed, their unseen bearers pushed back in the aftermath. Two shots rang out from a gun, both immediately blocked by another blade. Swiping to the left to block the first, and to the right for the second. But then a third shot came, succeeding where the first two failed. It struck its target right in his side, tearing through his grey coat and letting the blood splash free from the hole made. The man strained, groaning through clenched teeth, as he dropped his sword and slumped down against a smooth stone wall, stained with his own blood.

It was clear now. The battle, at least one of several, took place in an alley. Dark and dingy, with only a single light illuminating the length. That light shining down on the man, his back sliding down the wall until he sat on the alley floor. He held his abdomen with his left hand, trying to stop the bleeding from his wound. It was useless, though, as the red fluid seeped out between his fingers. Some blood even trickled down the side of his mouth as he bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from screaming. Instead, it came out as a stifled groan of pain. His whites soon loosened their grip as he looked up, releasing an exasperated sigh as a thin shadow bisected the lamplight showering over his face. The assailant in shadow held up a sword in one hand, his right hand, and swung it down.

********

The twin headlights of a silver Toyota GT86 switched on, a pair of beeps signaling from inside as its doors unlocked. The vehicle sat in a one-aisle coin parking lot adjacent to a multi-story parking garage, the spaces perpendicular but their orientation angular. The space the 86 was parked in was the second from the entrance to the lot, the closest space empty. A blue sign on metal stilts adjacent to the empty space advertised the lot’s rates.

24h 最大 3600円

20分 100円

60分 200円

24 hours maximum – 3600 yen

20 minutes – 100 yen

60 minutes – 200 yen

Also standing at the entrance to the lot was the woman who left Club Sessha moments earlier, her keys and fob in hand. She watched as the headlights belonging to her 86 dimmed. Once they did, her indifferent expression went away with a blink of her eyes, her smile returning as she lowered her arm and approached the car without a word.

First, she opened the passenger’s side door and gently set her handbag in the matching seat, pulling back as the straps fell and hung over the edge. Next, she went to the parking machine and dropped two ¥500 coins into the coin slot. The screen next to the slot displayed the total sum of her payment - ¥1000 – in black text. Seconds later, a green “OK” popped up on the far right of the screen, accompanied by a quick pair of beeps and the clinking of her change into the dispenser. She reached in and grabbed the change, closing her hand to keep it hidden as she turned around, returning to her car. As she approached the driver’s side, she hummed a small tune under her breath. She stopped at the driver’s side door, reaching out for the handle.

But before she could make contact, a gunshot rang out in the distance. Her hand stopped as she winced in reaction, grunting as she raised her head, opened her eyes, and looked out in the distance.

She saw nothing, not in the street providing access to the lot or the buildings opposite. But there was noise, faint but rather close. The tings of swords clashing against one another, the echoing cracks of bullets leaving their chambers, both at once and several at a time. That cacophony was enough to keep the girl’s attention, for as little as she saw with her own eyes.

“Those sounds… A battle?”

She blinked once, still captivated by what she heard, and then released a nervous chuckle of disbelief, her eyes narrowing to match. “No, it _can’t_ be… They can’t _possibly_ be fighting in _this_ part of town. Not while there’s still people out. Yeah, there’s no way…” She let out another nervous chuckle as she bent over again, eyes focused on the handle as she once again reached for it.

But, like before, another gunshot interrupted her attempt. Not in the distance, though, but closeby. That is, the bullet sped right for her side-view mirror and hit the silver exterior. It went in far enough to crack the actual mirror also, the panel shattering in an instant. What’s more, the sound and impact made the girl yelp and jump back from her car in fear. Slowly, she backed up as she trembled at what transpired.

“O-Okay, _that_ doesn’t sound too good…” A few seconds passed before more shots came, two more striking her side-view mirror and one shattering the passenger’s side window. Those made her scream out, turning around and running from her 86. “ _Really_ not good!”

As she ran off, away from the cars and further down into the lot, the shots stopped, but another sound quickly came into being. The scream of an adult male, gradually growing louder as time went on. The time was short, though, because as quickly as the scream was released, the man, dressed in a black suit not unlike the one attacked in the alley, flew right into the lot. His back slammed against the top portion of the 86’s passenger side, jostling the vehicle as the car alarm went off, the frantic beeping muting out the man’s fall to the asphalt surface.

The woman kept running until she found an alley, though that’s not to say she stayed stopped. Pushing her hands against one of the building corners marking the entrance to slow down, she resumed her retreat into the alley, panting heavily as her chest jiggled with each broad step. Multiple overhead lamps attached to the buildings illuminated her escape route as she kept running, each portion of light washing over her face every few seconds. With each flash, the panic and fear in her face were readily apparent.

“ _Gotta hide…_ ” the girl thought to herself. “ _Gotta find a place to hide… Otherwise, I’m dead!_ ”

In her retreat, she made a number of turns. She made a right at the first side entrance she saw, then a left with another two-handed touch to a corner to restart her speed, and another left into an open alley, free of any obstacles besides a trash can that was off to the side anyways, next to a back door. The girl looked back after completing the turn, bringing her head back to see what was ahead. It was then that she slowed to a stop, the fear returning to her relieved face as she looked forward. There was no place left for her to go. Just a wall in front and two on the side, and no door to continue her path.

“A dead end…”

The girl stared at the end of her road for a while longer, the fear slowly fading. And then, with a lowered head and a sigh through puckered lips, the relief returned. “Oh man, I thought I was a goner there for a sec…” She took another breath before raising her head again, looking down at the ground. “This should be far enough away from the battle to keep me safe.” She closed her eyes. “Yes, until the morning, I’ll be safe here…”

“I beg to differ.”

“Hmm?” The girl opened her eyes at the womanly voice, her pinkish-red irises barely hidden by her dilated pupil. That didn’t last long, though, as they shot open wide, the pupils shrinking as she gasped and once more trembled in immediate fear, greater than before. “N-No…”

The girl looked up at the two-story dead end and on the building’s roof, she saw a group of girls looking down at her in turn. A trio, cast in shadow against the green-tinted night sky. The intimidating darkness hid their more detailed features well from the girl, but they remained distinguishable from one another regardless. The woman in front, arms crossed, had long hair that went down to her thighs. The girl next to the first, standing just a step or two back with one hand on her hip and the other by her side, had her hair done up in a ponytail. The last of the three, standing behind the other two with ambiguous pose, wore her hair in twintails. The other thing that she could easily tell about the trio through her distress was that all three of them wore some type of mask that covered half of their faces; their noses, mouths, and chins all hidden away under the cloth cover.

A bead of sweat ran down the side of the girl’s head as she let a choked-up grunt escape her mouth, practically stuck open in awe. She prepared to step back, but before she could, the voice from just earlier again brought her plans to a halt.

“It’s pointless to run.”

The girl lightly gasped, too flummoxed at her statement to so much as figure out which of the three figures told her that. Her eyes trembled in further response to the cryptic statement, and before she knew it, something sped past her at speeds almost equal to the bullets that damaged her car earlier. A worried moan of a gasp came out as her eyes darted back to see what passed her by. In that moment of distraction, something revealed itself before her. Something surrounded her body, from her torso down to her feet. They appeared to her as a multiplicity of horizontal lines, bunched into groups with generous spacing between them, as distinguishable to her in the barely lit alley as white was against black. Her eyes turned back at these lines, another gasp-moan making its way out.

The figure behind her jerked her bare right hand back, the end of a rope gripped tightly within. The lines surrounding the woman were all rope. Whether it was several ropes or a single continuous strand was uncertain. Nevertheless, they did the job their wielder laid out for them. They wrapped themselves around the woman, trapping her in place. The bunches around her lower half bound her first; two around each thigh, four around each shin, and one around each foot, arranged in a manner rendering her unable to separate those limbs. Three bunches tied in a similar manner around her arms bound them next, forcing them behind her back. Several more bunches tied her torso: one above her breasts, one below, one around her belly, and a crotch rope arrangement below that, all digging in at the single pull also. In response to the several binds initiated by the single pull, the girl raised her head and squeezed her eyes shut, a strained groan escaping through clenched teeth.

The girl then started to struggle in her binds, wiggling around in an attempt to escape as she looked back in frustration at her assailant. “W-What do you think you’re doing? Let me go!” She strained again as she tried to force her arms apart.

The figure that stood behind her, holding the end of the rope she used to tie her up, was the long-haired woman of the trio. Her light grayish-pink locks weren’t completely free-flowing, as a ribbon tied them together just above her butt to form an extremely low ponytail. She had amber eyes, light magenta eyeshadow, and an over-the-nose mask that matched the latter in color, with a white lily on the left side of her head just above the ear, serving as a hair accessory. Her outfit consisted of a white robe with magenta trim, with no sleeves and a V-shaped cleavage window for her generously sized breasts, one cup size larger than those of her victim. The robe ended with a magenta obi tied around her waist, and a loincloth covering her crotch but exposing the side hems of her pale pink panties. With a soft grunt, she smirked under her mask as she watched the woman struggle in her binds in her futile attempt to escape.

“Open wide!”

“Huh?” The girl stopped straining and started looking around, wondering where the shrill and girly voice came from. As she brought her mouth forward, she opened her mouth for just a second.

The perfect time for the next move of her mystery assailants. A wad of cloth shot forward, right for her open mouth, and forced its way inside.

“Mmmmmmmmmph!?” the girl exclaimed as she felt her cavity fill with the stretchy makeshift gag. In reaction, she tried to spit out the gag, but was immediately interrupted as the figure that forced it inside blocked it with something additional: several bandanas, the outermost layer of the three a bright teal. The stretchy cloths wrapped around the lower half of her face, her eyes shooting open further in increasing panic. “Nmmmffpph!”

As the second masked girl took over the first’s place behind the bound woman before them, she tied the bandanas in back, a single bow created from the three layers with just one of her black-gloved hands.

“There we go. Nice and tight~.”

The second figure surrounding the girl poked her head out from behind her. This one was the twintailed girl, her hair black with a purplish tint, and her bright red eyes accented with pastel purple eyeshadow – the same color as the OTN mask, tankini top and thong which served as her outfit. The girl looked back at the figure, her eyes once more trembling in fear as she whimpered around her jam gag.

“Excellent work,” a third voice rang out, slightly deeper but still considerably feminine. “Let’s add the finishing touches now, shall we?”

“Oh, definitely~!” The twintailed girl held up a small role of white microfoam tape. Both the sight of the tape and the sound of what was about to happen next only frightened the gagged girl more, prompting another whimper.

A long piece of the tape stretched out from the roll and wrapped itself around the outer bandana covering the girl’s face. The twintailed assailant closed the loop in back, just below the bandana ties. The remaining member of the trio, meanwhile, took out a small black collar, a leash attached to the O-ring in front, and tied it around the girl’s neck, making her grunt in slight pain.

“Ah yes, just _perfect_!”

But more pain came as the female captor tugged on the girl’s leash, forcing her forward with a pained and muffled yelp. She was lucky enough to still be standing, but her upper body lurched forward, her head pointed down at the ground with teary eyes.

Through her tears, the girl looked up at who held her leash. As she expected, it was the ponytailed girl who she first saw on the roof with her two teammates. At first, however, all she could see was the woman’s lower half. The thigh-high stockings covering her legs were a very light pink, almost white, with magenta ribbons tied around the tops and sandals on her feet, straps separating her big toe from the others. Next she got a look at her torso, dressed in a tight sleeveless magenta leotard that hugged each double F-cup breast almost individually. Her arms were dressed in gloves, but unlike the twintailed girl’s, whose gloves covered her whole hand, hers had a hole for the thumb, and a single strap going between the index and middle digits, all five left free in the end. And then she saw her face. The magenta color scheme extended as far as there also: her OTN mask, her eyeshadow, the ribbon tying her chestnut brown hair into her high ponytail, and the scarf wrapped around her neck were all that color. The only thing that wasn’t was her red eyes, a deeper and duller shade than her twintailed associate’s. As she did her blurry-eyed look-over, the girl heard the woman opposite her speak once again.

“Mmm, you look so _delicious_ , all tied up like that. We’re gonna have _so_ much fun with you tonight, cutie~.” She chuckled sinisterly, with the clear air of anticipation.

Watching her abductor laugh behind her mask, all the girl could do was whimper around and behind her gags, tearing up even more as her eyes continued to shake in terror. It was then that she felt another tug. “Mmmh!” She yelped as the ponytailed girl lifted her up with the leash, slinging her over her left shoulder and keeping her secure as she wrapped her arm around her waist. As she was held in place, she wiggled around, protesting behind her gag further.

With that, the masked girl looked over two her associates. “Welp, we’ve got another one. Let’s go!”

“Agreed,” the long-haired woman replied. Standing off to the side, at her ponytailed partner’s right, the woman turned back to look at the alley’s entrance, her G-cups jiggling inside her robe. “It would be unwise to remain here while a battle is taking place.”

The twintailed girl turned around to face the long-haired woman, her hands behind her head. “Yeah, the _last_ thing we’d want is to make ourselves known!”

“Very true,” the long-haired woman responded with closed eyes and a nod before turning back. The moment she did, she jumped high into the air, out of the alley. The twintailed girl turned around and did the same, as did the ponytailed girl with their captive in tow. The bound and gagged girl let out another muffled yelp as she felt herself leave the alley with the trio.

Once out of the alley, the three girls landed on the roof looking over the dead end, the same building they first appeared upon, and ran in the opposite direction. As they reached the edge of the current building, they leaped over to the next one, repeating the process with each individual roof. Their retreat was as silent as their arrival, the clashing of swords and firing of guns nearby being the only sounds throughout that sector of Tokyo. But those sounds faded into quietude too, as the sector was left behind, returning to the skyline of the metropolis, backed up against the cloudless green-tinted sky of night…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. A kaomoji is a Japanese-language emoticon created using text.  
> 2\. Coin parking is a type of public parking system in Japan where cars are parked on surface lots that have a metal plate that lifts up and keeps the car in place after ten minutes in the lot. To lower the plate, the person parking has to pay a certain amount of money based on the time spent in the lot and the lot’s charging race.


	2. Act 1

A twin pair of soft but piercing beeps sounded with each second. This distinct sound emanated from an alarm clock, sitting on a nightstand beside a switched-off lamp and a tissue box. The time on the digital dial was 6:30, a small “A” highlighted to the left of the numbers. Below them in smaller text was the date: “TUE 14 MAR 2084”. The clock continued blaring for several seconds, bathed in the muted blue glow of the morning sky shining in through the closed curtains of the room it sat in, before a hand reached out and pressed a button at the top, switching off the sound.

The nightstand the digital alarm sat atop stood next to a bed, backed up against the wall of a moderately-sized bedroom. Spacious, too, considering the wooden floor space on either side of the bed. Apart from the nightstand, a bookshelf next to the bed, and a desk with a rolling chair and closed laptop between the shelf and the opposite wall, housing the curtained windows that produced the dim blue glow from the outside sky, the room was barren. It was not unoccupied, though. The hand that switched off the alarm belonged to someone, and that someone moved that hand back as they sat up, pushing the blanket off of their upper body and turning around, seated at the edge of the bed.

The person just waking up was a male in his late teens, though he looked one or two years younger. He had black hair an inch above neck length, messy from having just gotten out of bed, and wore a white T-shirt and dark blue pants. As his bare feet touched the ground, he raised his head up and stretched his arms out, yawning himself further awake. When he lowered his arms, resting them on his knees, he softly sighed, glancing down at himself and the floor with groggy, grayish-blue eyes.

“There we go. Let’s face the day.”

********

“As one of the presently most destructive battles within the city, the total number of casualties remains indeterminate.”

A newscaster spoke in a professional tone, his sound and accompanying images coming from a nearby widescreen TV. In the upper left corner of the screen was the time, 6:52. Across the screen was the headline: “豊島区の暴力団バトル最も破壊的”, or “Yakuza Battle in Toshima Most Destructive Yet”. Displayed onscreen was an alley surrounded by building walls on either side, a section cordoned off with yellow police tape as officers in uniform stood behind it. From what could be told, there was a blood splatter on the wall they faced.

The broadcast, however, switched back to the main room, where the newscaster sat at a desk facing the screen. He was dressed in a black suit with a red tie, had his coif neatly combed to obscure his forehead, and appeared to have slight bags under his eyes.

“Based on recent estimates,” he continued, “The current count stands at the Shimizu clan with 7, and the Shikimitsu with no less than 30. In tangentially related news, a missing person case was reported early this morning for Miss Yui Marumichi of Setagaya.”

The scene onscreen switched over to an image of a woman with long light brown hair and pinkish-red eyes, smiling as if she was posing for her driver’s license. The same woman from the previous night. Below her was the tagline “豊島区で若い女性が行方不明と報告”, or “Young Woman Reported Missing in Toshima”.

“Miss Marumichi, age 22, was last seen leaving Club Sessha in Ikebukuro at approximately 1:55 A.M. this morning. What’s more, her belongings were found inside her car at a coin parking lot in Toshima, where last night’s battle took place.” The scene cut to a shot of the damaged 86 in the same parking lot, the passenger-side window and corresponding side mirror both with shattered glass, before cutting back to the newscaster in the main studio. “Though no confirmation has been made, the possibility of abduction by either the Shimizu or Shikimitsu clans is highly likely. Let’s move to our chief correspondent in Ikebukuro…”

Outside the TV, an older man sighed. “Again?”

Sitting at a table in a dining area adjacent to a nearby kitchen, also bathed in blue from the moments before dawn outside, was a man in his mid-to-late 40s, with short greying hair and short facial hair forming a spotty mustache and beard. He wore a white work shirt, and was reading the newspaper as he listened to the TV in the background.

“I’m tired of people assuming the yakuza’s behind all these kidnappings.” He let go of one edge of the paper, picking up a cup of coffee from the table. “Just because they were adjacent, it doesn’t mean they’re related.” He held the coffee to his mouth and drank from it.

“They _could_ be telling the truth, dear.”

Sitting across from the man was a woman about five to ten years younger, her black hair done up in a side ponytail hanging over her right shoulder and her eyes closed. She was dressed up in a light long-sleeved shirt with a darker-toned plaid apron laid over it. She too had a cup of coffee in hand, holding it up to drink from it. She continued talking first, though.

“It could be coincidence, sure, but it’s still likely that she _was_ kidnapped by the yakuza, no doubt in that.” She sipped from her coffee also.

“Mommy, what’s a yakuza?”

The question was asked by a young girl, no older than 6, kneeling on the chair to the mother’s right with her hands resting on the edge of the table. Her hair, like that of her parents, was black and decorated with a white headband, and her eyes were blue and wide with innocence. She was dressed in a blue kindergartener’s uniform, minus the hat.

The mother turned to her child, gently setting two of her fingers on the latter’s hand, and spoke softly. “You see, Aika, a yakuza is a criminal. A dangerous criminal that you don’t _ever_ want to get involved with. Okay?”

“Okay~,” Aika responded cutely.

The father, meanwhile, turned to the fourth person at the table, sitting at the corner farthest from the TV. “How about you, Shin? You gonna back up your old man on this one or what?” He drank from his cup again, waiting for the other’s answer.

Sitting at the corner was the boy from before, now dressed in a school uniform, munching on a piece of toast with a red-colored jelly spread across the top side. After chewing the piece he had and swallowing it, he exhaled and opened his eyes, looking up.

“It’s not my business who kidnapped her. She was kidnapped, that’s all that matters.” He brought the last piece of toast back up, popping it into his mouth and chewing it up also.

At his response, his family looked at him. His mother and little sister, speechless but fairly normal in gaze. His father, sighing in slight disappointment. “Dodging the question again, huh? I don’t know why I even bother…” He glanced off to the side as he took another drink from his mug.

After swallowing the last of his toast, the boy scooted his chair back and stood up, bowing to his family. “Thank you for the meal. I’ll be heading off now.”

As he turned around for the door, his mother smiled at him with closed eyes. “So long, Shin. Have a good day!”

His father raised his mug at him with a grin. “Show ‘em who’s boss, son.”

His little sister, looked back and waved at him. “Bye-bye, Shin! See you later!”

The boy, Shin, stopped at the edge of the kitchen/dining space, leading into the foyer, and looked back at his family with a smile. A smile that was genuine, but appeared rather nervous and worrisome alongside his own closed eyes.

“Yeah. I’ll be seeing you too.”

********

The remnants of dawn over Tokyo lit up the sky in that same blue tone, the clouds hanging over the city hiding away the morning sun. This spoke true for the Nakano Ward in particular, the skyline framing the eastern sky highlighted by the multi-story Sun Cuore Tower on the left, and the familiar triangular silhouette of the Nakano Sun Plaza on the right. Between these two buildings, a brief glimpse of the sun shone through, between two passing clouds.

**“We live in a dangerous world.”**

Elsewhere in Nakano, along a narrow asphalt downslope, was a two-story house with off-white stucco siding, shaded blue by the daylight. The house, along the left side of the downslope, faced the right border: an ivy-covered chain-link fence on top of a moderately heighted concrete wall, with the tops of small trees peeking over the upper edge. Out of the house stepped Shin, the young man from earlier, who took a left and started slowly making his way down the slope.

**“At least, that’s the way it’s always appeared.”**

As he walked, Shin had his black leather school bag slung over his body, the strap crossing the top of his school uniform. The black jacket was unbuttoned to show off the white dress shirt and dark blue tie underneath, the black pants ending in the standard brown shoes students like him wore to school. As he walked he looked down, almost solemnly.

**“For the longest time, Tokyo’s always had a dangerous air about it.”**

Beyond the beginning stretch of his travel to school, Shin’s internal monologue also accompanied the skyline of Tokyo, just to the east of his route. Though the sun hid behind the taller buildings, the clouds started to move back, the blue tint of the sky slowly morphing into a warmer shade, much more welcoming than the prelude of the dawn.

**“That, you can blame on the battles. Popping up where you least expect them, in the dead of the night… It’s thanks to them that Tokyo is as dangerous as it is.”**

Minutes after his departure, Shin’s walking route took him to a bridge crossing over the Kanda River. He moved off of the asphalt road leading up to this point, and instead took his steps along the right side of the road, as he saw it. The sidewalk there was in a square tile pattern, with the occasional dark red or grey tile popping up among the sea of light tan. To the left of the sidewalk were short rectangular markers spaced six feet from one another, and to the right was a baby blue railing separating the road from the river.

**“It’s comparatively better during the day. No battles are fought then.”**

As he walked along the sidewalk, Shin looked up and glanced to the right, over the railing and at the river below.

**“Even so, that dangerous air remains.”**

The river below being almost barren. A tiny stream of water, narrow in width and almost laughable in depth, flowed through the middle, surrounded by litter on either side, damp like the concrete once covered by the river. Aside from the empty soda cans and sheets of newspaper, Shin spotted a group of adult men standing at the edge close to the other side. Three in number, all in casual clothes. Loose-fitting sweaters and baggy jeans. The man in the middle held a can of red spray paint, pointed at the stone wall as it wrote something. Shortly after, the man lowered the can, and he and his buddies walked away towards the bridge further down.

**“Letting us normal folk know that the future is filled with battles yet to come.”**

Once they cleared the wall, Shin saw what they wrote.

冬空は今夜死ぬ！

The Fuyuzora die tonight!

Shin grimaced as he read the graffiti, but with a soft and silent sigh, he regained his normal, solemn expression as he continued his crossing of the bridge, heading for the road on the other side, bordered by the apartment buildings within his sight.

**“As far as I’m concerned, battles should be ignored, if you have nothing to do with them. If you _can’t_ ignore them? Well, the best thing to do is power through them.”**

In due time, when the sun was out just a little more than before but the indications of dawn remained present in the sky, Shin arrived at his destination. A four-story high school building with a white-colored exterior and windows all around, including the middle portion of the front façade which rose up a story above the rest of the roof. The building and its adjoining property was separated from the street by a one-story stone wall whose components varied in dimensions but shared the same quadrilateral properties. Built into the wall was a black marble sign with engraved text it, hard to read at a distance thanks to the text being colored the same as the material it was etched into. A gate was built into the wall with one half open for students to come in and out, but there didn’t appear to be many. Besides Shin, only one passed through the front gates and into the courtyard separating them from the building, following behind him.

**“Lucky for me, the battles are real easy to ignore. Those ones happen at night, where I’m far from involved.”**

The courtyard, or at least the space close to the wall, was mostly barren also. A few students stood here and there, checking their phones or talking amongst themselves. Quietly, as if they were trying to be more at a distance from the establishment they went to than they already physically were at this moment. Shin, however, walked forward, past the wall and to the school. The same could be said of the bleach-blonde, spiky-haired student that followed behind him. Lacking a black school jacket, with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbow and his hands in his pockets, he walked directly behind Shin, though he veered to the left with a faster tiptoe pace, and a grin across his face.

**“The personal equivalent? They’re a different story.”**

“Shin Kizuka!”

Suddenly, Shin’s pursuer leaped up and brought his arm down onto Shin’s back, stopping him in his track and pushing him down some. The surprise impact broke Shin out of his blank expression with a grunt, the boy wincing in the aftermath his schoolmate, whose hand now rested on his shoulder, looked at him with wide green eyes and an excited grin.

“Hey there, buddy! How’ve things been?” He started shaking Shin from side to side with his one hand, closing his eyes in further excitement. “It feels like _forever_ since I last saw you!”

Grunting softly under his breath from the shakes, Shin stopped it with his right hand as he looked at his peer with slight distress. “Calm down, Sento! It’s only been two days!”

“Ah, who cares!?” Without warning, Sento started shaking Shin again, pulling him in close.

Shin groaned under his breath again, moving his hand back as he glared at Sento. “And stop shaking me!”

“C’mon, man, lighten up! It’s not like we’re _strangers_ or nothin’.” He snickered softly under his breath as he kept up his motions.

“He said that’s enough, Mochino,” another boy called out as he approached the two from the school building. “Keep that up, and you’re gonna traumatize the poor guy.”

The third student of the apparent bunch had black hair like Shin, though it was shorter and a little messier. He also had glasses which framed his black eyes, indistinguishable from the pupil, and unlike Sento, he still had his school jacket on.

“Psh, _fine_ …” Sento responded with annoyance. He let go of Shin, but not before pushing him forward, and then crossed his arms as he glanced off to the side in annoyance. “Dammit, Ugo, I was just saying hi to him…”

Shin gasped as Sento pushed him forward, but even so continued walking, looking to the third student, Ugo, with a smile and nodding to him in an impromptu bow. “Thanks for getting him off my back, Ugo.”

Ugo smiled at Shin. “Not a problem, Kizuka, not at all.”

Shin smiled back, a little nervous, before looking forward and raising his hand to them. “Well, I’m going on ahead. See you two later.”

“Okay, see you in class!” Ugo called out to Shin, waving back with a simple flick of his wrist.

Sento, meanwhile, returned his hands to his pockets and pouted some more, looking off to the side as he grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, see ya.”

Shin nervously chuckled as he looked back at Sento’s unpleased response, turning back as he came closer to the building, where a few more students were starting to enter also.

**“But even then, those ones are fairly easy to power through.”**

********

The hallways inside the school, much like the outside courtyard, were pretty much barren at these hours. Next to no sounds filled them; just the faint buzz of the air conditioner and the occasional faint tapping of school slippers across the hallway. Hanging next to one of the doors, protruding from the wall, was a white sign with black text that bore the number of the classroom beyond: 3-A.

More people populated the room than the hallway outside, but even then, the numbers were few. Two male students conversed at a couple of desks near the entrance closer to the blackboard. One of the two guys, who had black hair going slightly past his neck with bangs covering one eye, had his jacket off and hung over his chair. He turned to his shorter-haired companion, standing with his rear up against the edge of the adjacent disk, and held out his hand as he spoke.

“I hear it’s gonna happen sometime today.”

“Oh, is that so?”

The first student closed his eyes and smirked. “You better believe it.”

Besides those two, the other presence in the room was Shin, sitting far from the others. Second seat from the back, right next to the window, his school bag hung off the side of his desk as he sat and looked out the window and into space, his left elbow resting against the desktop as his hand held up his head.

**“Still, as effortless as they may be, there’s always the stray few that are just _impossible_ to escape from.”**

Shin’s monologue drowned out the voices of the other students, but before they could find their way back into being heard, they were interrupted again by another noise. Or rather, three noises. The sliding open of the door near the back of the room, the rushed patters of one’s shoes against the floor, and an excited exclamation.

“Oh, Shiiiiiin~!”

The voice caught his attention immediately as it rang out. Shin perked up and took his head off his hand, letting the arm fall to the desk as he turned to see who it was. Not a second later, his eyes widened and his teeth clenched into an expression that wasn’t so much surprised as it was startled and heavily expectant. The quiet screech he let out between his teeth further emphasized his fear of what was coming right for him.

It was a girl with powder blue hair done up in pigtails, and a uniform recognizing her as a classmate of Shin’s. Apart from the white undershirt, her uniform was different from that Shin and his like-gendered peers wore. The long-sleeved jacket, buttoned up over her D-cup breasts, was dark blue instead of black, and her tie was purple with white diagonal stripes. She also wore a purple and black tartan miniskirt whose top half hugged her upper hips but was pleated the rest of the way to the hem, and white thigh-high stockings with two purple rings going around the top. But what was important beyond the girl’s appearance was her actions. She leapt into the air, eyes closed and arms outstretched, coming right towards Shin.

“Good morning~!”

As the initial shock of the sight wore off, Shin unclenched his teeth and panted as he brought his arms up. He swiftly turned his head and looked in both directions, as if he was trying to figure out which direction to move in once he got out of his seat. But it was too late to make a move, as the girl who just launched herself like a missile crashed into him, making him yelp as his butt left his chair and his side slammed against the adjacent wall. Though faint, the resulting thud could be heard from the hall.

When all was done, Shin was seated on the floor, his head lightly pressed against the wall just below the adjacent window as his classmate hugged him tightly. Her knees rested against the floor on either side of the right of Shin’s stretched-out legs, and her right shoe barely touched one of the front legs of Shin’s chair, roughly shifted aside by the earlier impact.

Shin left out a short groan through his partially closed mouth from either the fall to the ground before or the hug that happened now, glancing to the side at his female peer. “For god’s sake, Utsugi, do you _always_ have to greet me like that?” he asked in an annoyed tone.

The girl, Utsugi, giggled as she moved her face back from Shin’s shoulder and shook her head, smiling at him with her plump lips. “No, I don’t _have_ to. But you know as well as I do that’s not gonna stop me!” she cheerfully exclaimed as she brought her face back in, rubbing her cheek against Shin’s.

Shin’s eyelids dropped slightly as he glanced off to the other side. “Of course not.” He was clearly displeased with Utsugi’s response.

“Just what I wanna hear!” Utsugi, on the other hand, didn’t care about his snide comment, and instead hugged and rubbed against him harder.

Shin grunted, closing one of his eyes as he shifted around in her grasp. “O-Ow… Utsugi, too tight…”

All Utsugi did was giggle again as she sustained her seemingly endless glomping of Shin, bouncing up and down excitedly on her knees as her skirt occasionally fluttered up. It stayed down just enough to hide her underwear, but even so emphasized her ass as it lightly bounced with the rest of her, the subtle shapeliness outlined by the non-pleated half of her skirt.

Her bouncing, however, was put to an end when the uwabaki-clad foot of another student came down and struck her behind. Utsugi stifled the resulting yelp through clenched teeth as her eyes shot wide open, the lavender irises shrinking in surprise before looking over at who stomped on her.

“Let go of him this instant, Kawaoshi.”

It was another classmate of theirs, female also. Separate bunches of her blonde hair, closer to yellow than brown or white, was done up on either side with ribbons into twin ponytails that went down to mid-back, while the rest hung free behind her. Her uniform was the same as Utsugi’s, though her bust size was considerably smaller, if not nonexistent; and somehow unrelated to her flat chest, her blue eyes were fixed into a stern glare, further emphasized by the one hand on her left hip and the other hanging free by her right.

“Or do I have to finally write you up for harassment?”

Utsugi nervously turned back at the girl and grinned with just as much uneasiness. “N-No, everything’s perfectly fine here, Yukisa…” She moved away from Shin and rubbed the back of her head, her shaky grin growing wider. “I just got carried away again, that’s all…”

“I _see_ …”

Shin, meanwhile, got up off the ground, his right hand pressing against the tile flooring for a moment before he let go. “Thanks for the help, Class Pres. I really appreciate it,” he told Yukisa with a smile.

“Idiot.”

Yukisa’s one-word response made Shin pout, not out of sadness but again of annoyance, with those same half-lidded eyes and an under-the-breath murmur.

Yukisa turned around with her back facing Shin and Utsugi, both hands on her hips now as she shut her eyes and raised her head aloofly. “If you were quick or smart enough to dodge her when she came at you, I wouldn’t have had to get you out of that mess, now would I?” She turned her head to the right as her hair swished around, in a prudish accompaniment to her ungrateful response.

“Of course. My apologies,” Shin sarcastically replied.

“Hmm, what’s _this_?” another classmate queried as she approached the other three. “Berating Shin for no reason _again_ , Yukisa?”

This third girl was slightly shorter than either Yukisa or Utsugi, and her breast size was somewhere in-between the former’s As and the latter’s Ds. She had a bob of brown hair that stopped an inch above her shoulders, and glasses reflecting the morning sun shining into the classroom, obscuring her eyes from view. Bringing her hand up to one of the glasses’ arms, her mouth widened into a smug grin.

“Such an unattractive quality in a lady…”

Yukisa growled under her breath at the glasses girl’s mocking tone and swiftly turned to face her with an annoyed glare and matching scowl. “Shut up, Kikuguchi.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure…” The bespectacled maiden walked forward, holding up her hands and waving them up and down, palms facing downwards, like she wasn’t taking Yukisa seriously. A few steps later, she stopped and placed her hands on Shin’s desk. “Oh, _Shin_ …”

“Hm?” Just as he was sitting back down in his seat, Shin looked up at her as she looked at him with her brown eyes, now visible through her glasses. “What is it, Shirei?”

Shirei giggled softly, closing her eyes and shifting her head to the side with a blush. “Oh, nothing~. It’s just that the exit exams are coming up soon…” She slowly opened her eyes as she turned back to Shin. Her head soon reached a stop, and just as it did, her half-lidded eyes looked at him suggestively with a smile on her pink lips to match. “And I was wondering if you could use a study partner~.”

Shin blushed at Shirei’s request, backing up in his seat out of startlement. Grunting softly behind clenched teeth, a nervous smile broke out soon enough. “Um, that’s nice and all, but I…”

“I wouldn’t bother.”

Shin stiffened up at the womanly voice coming from behind him, less startled and more mildly fearful. “Oh no,” he whispered.

Shirei looked up in response to the voice as well, grunting in annoyance and looking directly behind Shin in offense.

“As one of the school’s smartest, you should know that our exit exams are _super_ easy.”

Shirei balled one of her hands into a fist, growling in growing anger. “Why you…” Off to the side, Utsugi and Yukisa looked at the next arrival, not as mad as Shirei, but still quite annoyed.

Standing behind Shin was a fourth girl, whose few extra inches in height above Yukisa and F-bordering-on-G-cups made her appear on the cusp of womanliness. Her bright violet hair was done up in a short ponytail with a pink ribbon, with a single low-pointing ahoge sprouting from the top of her head, her magenta eyes had white ovals of light obscuring her pupils, and a small mole was present near one of the bottom corners of her left eye. With a seductive grin and chuckle, her large uniform-clad breasts pressing against the back of Shin’s head.

“Besides, Shin doesn’t need to worry himself with _studying_ ~.”

At the feel of the soft rack pushing against him, Shin’s blush increased, his irises shrinking in further nervousness. He glanced up after the initial reaction, only to find the girl looking back down at him.

“What he _needs_ is to relax. Isn’t that right, my dear Shin?” She closed her eyes as she brought her hands forward and rubbed Shin’s chest through his shirt.

Shin let out a small squeal as he felt the hands rub his torso up and down, and started struggling against her gentle embrace. “Dammit, Chikuru, let me go..!”

“Oh, don’t be like _that_!” Chikuru cheerfully exclaimed as she pulled Shin in closer and hugged him tight, his groans and thrashes of struggle only increasing with each rub of hers, both from her hands in front and her breasts from behind. “You’re _way_ too high-strung, sweetie.” She looked back down at him seductively, practically grinning from ear to ear. “Just sit back and let Chikuru make you feel _all_ better~.”

Shirei’s fist tightened at Chikuru’s teasing words, her teeth clenched tighter as she let out a small growl of anger. She started to march around her desk and over to Shin and Chikuru. “That does i-”

But before she could so much as take a second step, Yukisa marched forward first with arms to either side and balled into fists. As she cut off Shirei’s path, she gave her own frustrated exclamation.

“Tsugumukai, you harlot, let go of Kizuka _this_ instant!” She breezed right past Utsugi also, the girl yelping as she scooted out of the way of Yukisa’s strides. Once past both girls, she reached forward and grabbed the collar of Chikuru’s uniform just above her right breast, putting a stop to both her rubbing and Shin’s thrashes as the latter glanced over in surprise. “What you’re doing goes _beyond_ regular harassment!”

Chikuru just smirked at Yukisa’s threat. “Hm. You’re just jealous ‘cause you can’t do _this_ to him with those tiny things of yours~,” she said as she pressed her breasts against Shin’s head again, making him grunt once more.

Yukisa gasped in offense, blushing brightly, but after a second-long pause, she closed her eyes and turned her head, her hands on her hips. “Hmph! As _if_ I’d want two unsightly lumps of fat weighing me down.”

Suddenly, Utsugi jumped up from behind Yukisa and wrapped her arms around her stomach, pulling back as if she was trying to get her to let go of Chikuru. “Don’t call them lumps of _fat_ , you flat-chested freak!”

But Yukisa didn’t let go, grunting at the pull and looking back at Utsugi following her insult. “Let go, Kawaoshi! I wasn’t even _talking_ to you!”

“Then maybe you should talk to _me_!” Shirei exclaimed as she approached Yukisa, grabbing the collar of her uniform just as she was grabbing Chikuru’s, pulling her close as she glared directly at her. “Apologize for cutting me off, _right now_!”

Yukisa closed one eye and glanced at Shirei, growling. “Like _hell_ I will!”

“Hey, if you three are gonna fight again, you could let go of me first!” Chikuru exclaimed, looking at them in worry.

“And allow you to molest Shin?” Yukisa angrily questioned. She, Utsugi, and Shirei all glared at Chikuru with angry frowns, and then shouted at her in unison.

“No way!”

From there, they started bickering.

“I’m not gonna let that skank lay her hands on _my_ Shin!” Shirei shouted.

“Yeah, me either!” Utsugi agreed.

“It’s a little late for that, girls~,” Chikuru remarked.

“Stop acting smug and just come with me already!” Yukisa demanded.

All the while, Shin was left trapped in Chikuru’s embrace, his head pushing against her tits as he strained under his breath. His struggle had stopped, but he still felt unhappy, considering the present situation he was in. It felt like it was going to keep on going. But then…

“Stop, all of you.”

The girls stopped their bickering and jostling of one another, sharing a collective grunt as they all turned in the direction of the classroom’s front; or rather, the area in front of Shin’s desk. The source of the soft-spoken voice. Shin looked over in that direction too, as his head was still pressed against Chikuru’s bosom. Of the five, only Shirei spoke.

“Akari…”

Standing in front of Shin’s desk was another girl, dressed in the same school uniform. She had pale skin, bright lime green hair cut shorter than Shirei’s bob, equally bright red eyes, and C-cup breasts. She stood before the girls with her hands brought together in front, easily the calmest of the six in that moment. After a second of silence, she spoke once more.

“Seriously. Don’t you girls realize that your feuding is distressing Shin?”

Shin blinked, sighing under his breath as he looked up at Akari with a blush. As for the girls, they were silent in the face of Akari’s remark. After a silent moment of thought, however, they responded, but not to Akari.

Chikuru moved her arms away from Shin, making him gasp, and backed up one step just as Yukisa’s hand left her suit collar. “Sorry about all that, Shin,” she said, bringing her hands together and bowing gently.

The others did the same thing, letting go of one another and giving their apologies to him.

“Yeah, same here!” Utsugi said, bowing a little more sorrily.

“I’m sorry too.” Yukisa’s bow consisted of just a nod.

“We won’t trouble you again like that, promise!” Shirei exclaimed with regret, bowing just as Utsugi did.

Shin rubbed the back of his head as he looked at the last three. “Yeah, it’s fine…” he said with disinterest. He turned his head back and blinked, smiling once more as he looked up at Akari. “Thanks a lot, Akari. You’re a real lifesaver.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Akari responded, reaching out and patting Shin on the head. Two pats in one go, rather.

Shin grunted at the double-pat, closing his eyes as he blushed. He opened one and looked up at Akari, and noticed she was blushing too. It was obvious against the paleness of her complexion otherwise.

“You _are_ my everything, after all.”

Shin groaned under his breath, his other eye twitching slightly before he closed them both again, sighing in defeat. “Of _course_ I am…” It was then that Akari’s hand moved back, and he opened both eyes, weary as if he was a new man after the events of the past minute.

**“The source of the battles I can never escape from lie with five of my female classmates.”**

Yukisa returned to her desk, directly next to Shin’s. She sat down and placed her arms on the desk, turning her head gently and opening her eyes, glancing back sternly.

**“Yukisa Tsukide. Our class representative, and a total stickler of one at that.”**

Sitting behind Yukisa was Utsugi, rubbing the back of her head with her right hand as held up her left, nervously chuckling all the while. None of which deterred Yukisa’s glare.

**“Utsugi Kawaoshi. School track and field star, with a complete disregard for personal space.”**

Shirei, sitting at the desk in front of Shin, took a pencil case out of her schoolbag leaning against the legs and took out two pencils, all while looking over the contents of her open notebook.

**“Shirei Kikuguchi. The smartest girl in class, and the whole school, for that matter.”**

Akari just sat at her desk next to Shirei’s and in front of Yukisa’s, completely silent as she stared off into the front of the classroom.

**“Akari Teruya. Always calm, always quiet. It’s actually kind of disturbing.”**

As for Chikuru, she sat next to Utsugi and behind Shin, her arms resting on the desk as her breasts rested on them. She looked forward at Shin, a dreamy smile on her face as her ahoge bounced once.

**“And Chikuru Tsugumukai. A bottomless barrel of playfulness, with a noticeable rack to match.”**

In the minutes before class, the girls just kept doing what they’ve been doing, with slight differences. Shirei looked over her notes while Akari sat silent. Utsugi tried her hardest to sit still in her seat while Chikuru kept daydreaming at Shin. And Yukisa glanced over at Shin, with the same sternness she gave Utsugi.

**“All five, each of them with the hots for _me_ : completely ordinary high schooler Shin Kizuka.”**

As for Shin, he adjusted his seat back to how it was. Once it was in place, he put his elbow on his desk and rested his head in his hand, staring off into space facing the blackboard instead of the window.

**“Many consider them to be my personal harem. But to me, they’re the bane of my existence. I can’t even imagine _how_ they came to love me to begin with. Probably something cliché like how nice I am to them when they _aren’t_ all over me. Hell, that would make _perfect_ sense. After all, basic human kindness is a rarity within these walls.”**

Just then, the comparative silence of the classroom was broken by the muffled sounds of fighting from outside. Shin blinked once at the initial impact, glancing to the right towards where the classroom doors were. The girls looked over in that direction as well: Chikuru, Shirei and Akari all glanced as Shin did, but Utsugi whipped her head around in excitement, while Yukisa simply turned it enough to face the door.

“Ugh, don’t tell me…” she disgustedly sighed.

As Yukisa made her remark, the black-haired student with the eye-obscuring bangs ran up to the sliding door closest to the classroom’s front and pushed it open swiftly, looking out into the hall. Almost immediately, he let out an excited cry. “Oh my god guys, it’s happening!”

Of the couple more students that filled the classroom alongside Shin’s admirers, Sento and Ugo were one of them, the latter leaning against the teacher’s podium while the former leaned against the edge of a front desk. Sento looked over at the student, tired but intrigued. “ _What’s_ happening?”

The student looked back at Sento as he continued. “Urazuka from Class 3-C and Onimeshi from Class 3-F! They’re duking it out out here!”

Sento sputtered in surprise, shaking around swiftly in his split second of reaction before calming himself and looking up, wide awake and interested. “Right now!?”

“Yeah!”

The hall outside class 3-A was no longer barren. At either end were crowds of students, mostly male with the stray female mixed in. Many looked normal, while others bore bedheads, pompadours, and/or headbands. Their sights laid focused on the two students in the middle, just outside the open class 3-A door.

The first of the two fighting students took a step back, panting as he held up a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it, some bent out of shape. He had tanned skin, a full head of messy black hair with tufts going up in spikes, bushy eyebrows of the same color that were frayed at the ends, and a muscular build. His outfit consisted of an open school jacket with no dress shirt underneath, a sarashi wrapped around the lower half of his bare scarred torso instead; the usual dress pants with boots instead of uwabaki, and a headband tied around his forehead with a red circle in the middle, bearing the text “3-Fの悪魔 鬼飯英助” or “Devil of 3-F Eisuke Onimeshi”.

“That the best you got, Urazuka!?” Onimeshi shouted after catching his breath, tightening the grip on his bat. “Come on and face me like you _mean_ it!”

Opposing Onimeshi, facing him down, was Urazuka. Compared to his adversary, his presence didn’t have much of an impact. His grayish brown hair was done up into a pompadour on top, while the hair on either side of his head hung down thin and free. His jacket too was unbuttoned, but his dress shirt remained on, with the top two buttons undone. His legs, spread in a fighting stance, ended in the school uwabaki as opposed to outside footwear. His face was unimpressive, and his lips were noticeably darker than his pale skin. The only intimidating things about him were the wooden sword in his hands and the intense glare he gave Onimeshi. To accompany the glare, he shot him a grin.

“Hn. Very well. Now say your prayers, Onimeshi!!”

As he let out his attack cry, Urazuka swung his sword down, both hands still on the handle, as if he was prepared to swing it again in attack. He rushed at Onimeshi, swinging his sword up as he cried out his name and bringing it back down to deliver what he thought was the first of a series of killing blows.

But that was not to be. While in the midst of being swung down, Urazuka’s wooden blade was stopped by Onimeshi’s bat. Not just stopped, in fact, but destroyed. The nail-studded club swung upwards and shattered the bokken in the middle of its pseudo-blade. Just as half of his weapon was reduced to nothing but splinters, Urazuka’s eyes widened, coupled with a wheeze of disbelief.

He only had a second to react to the shock of losing his weapon, because Onimeshi then swung his bat back in a secondary attack. His weapon hit Urazuka right in the face, the force of the swift brandish making him fly towards the window. The glass pane failed to stop him, as it was shattered by the projectile Urazuka’s body. Shards of glass exploded out of the hall just as he did, and as it did, the crowd on both sides of this hallway battle exploded into cheers of joy and shock, both types brimming with excitement nonetheless.

“Did you see _that_!?” the 3-A student exclaimed as he stepped out into the hall, forming a fist with his hand and bringing it down in his own excitement. “Urazuka just got batted out the window!”

“Really?” Sento said, standing upright and heading for the door. “Oh, I _gotta_ see this!”

Ugo sighed as he trailed behind Sento in unsurprised weariness. “I don’t know why I even bother with you…”

Yukisa turned away from the door, closing her eyes in aloof disgust. “Another delinquent fight. I swear, they are _so_ improper.”

“ _And_ unattractive,” Shirei chimed in.

“Loud, too,” Akari commented.

Utsugi stretched some as she put in her own two cents. “Seriously… There’s _way_ more to life than just those silly fights.”

Chikuru glanced over at Utsugi before glancing back at Shin with a smile. “There sure are. More than I can even _name_ , in fact!”

“Yeah, I bet there are…” Utsugi replied sarcastically.

As the two girls spoke behind him, Shin blinked, his glance moving back towards the front. He then looked up at the ceiling as his thoughts once more kicked in.

**“Sadameicho Senior High School.”**

東京都立 定命長高等学校

Sadameicho Senior High School, Tokyo Metropolis

That was what it said on the black marble sign next to the gates of the school. The text was the same color as the material it was debossed against, though the scant presence of white on the 命 character hinted at the initial presence of paint, all but worn away over time and neglect of repair.

**“Once upon a time, it was an exemplar of the Japanese public education system.”**

Urazuka grunted as he got up off the dirt courtyard, not as empty as it was before but barren enough around where he landed. He didn’t appear to be in the best of shape, with both a bloodied right hand, the liquid running down the back and dripping onto the ground, and a bruised right cheek with additional blood slowly streaming down from the corresponding side of his mouth. He sighed heavily as he steadied himself, the injured hand twitching as it tried to form a fist.

**“But now, it’s become nothing more than a hotbed of delinquency.”**

However, Urazuka was unaware that Onimeshi had leapt out of the window behind him, the same one he broke with his bat. He only noticed when he heard Onimeshi’s furious scream as he came down, bat in his hands, fully ready to bludgeon Urazuka further. As quickly as he turned his head to see Onimeshi, Urazuka shifted to the side to avoid the impact. Onimeshi landed, crouched as his bat hit the ground. But without missing a beat, he rushed at Urazuka, bringing his bat back up and swinging at him again. Urazuka dodged the first blow by moving out of its path, making the opposite motion as Onimeshi swung back again. While in mid-dodge, though, Urazuka brought his left hand, still holding the lower half of his wooden blade, and jabbed the broken end at his side. But before he could make impact, Onimeshi grabbed Urazuka’s wrist, blocking the impact. Urazuka gasped through clenched teeth in surprise at the grab, while Onimeshi growled. The bat, now in his left hand only, swung back around and nailed Urazuka right in his abdomen, prompting a choked groan of pain as he was swung around by the hit. Onimeshi spun as he hit Urazuka, only letting go a second later. As he did, his left arm jerked itself back with the bat as he continued to stare down his adversary.

**“One where bigshots and wannabes alike duke it out at all possible moments while their mindless fans cheer their antics on.”**

In the hallway where it all began, both of the crowds watching had merged, gathered around the windows and watching the fight down below. Some stood back from the broken window, watching from a distance but leaning forward to get a good look. Those near the unbroken windows had their hands and faces pressed up against them, more absorbed than the others. Those behind the window-adjacent either stood around or stood on their tiptoes in an attempt to see. Sento in particular, all the way at the back, was jumping up and down in an attempt to see what those at the forefront were seeing. Then, after a few seconds of watching with no difference in activity, gasps broke out among the front of the crowd.

**“At this point, most students with a brain had transferred out, while others stayed behind.”**

In the aftermath of the most recent attack against him, Urazuka gripped the handle of his broken bokken with both hands and prepared to swing it as he leaped at Onimeshi in a long stride, screaming in fury all the while. But before he could so much as bring both arms forward in attack, Onimeshi’s bat once again swung first, making its impact against Urazuka’s stomach this time. The swift attack took the breath out of the lesser, the accompanying bulging eyes and puckered lips making his face look more fish-like than it already was. Onimeshi’s swing soon completed, sending Urazuka flying through the front doors of the school building, shattering its glass as well.

**“Either because they can’t afford any other school or because it’d be pointless to switch so close to graduation.”**

Onimeshi’s attack didn’t just send Urazuka smashing through Sadameicho’s entrance. In fact, he flew far beyond, exiting out the closed doors which emptied out into the much more open courtyard in back, bordered by the building on two adjacent, right-angled sides. Urazuka landed on his back, groaning as he slowly lifted himself up. His subsequent attempt to stand was then interrupted as Onimeshi rushed through the broken glass of the back doors and leaped into the air, furiously screaming with his bat raised.

**“To prevent those from happening further, a plan was put in place: starting next year, Sadameicho will become an all-girls private school.”**

The crowd, meanwhile, started making its way into the classroom to watch the continuation of Onimeshi and Urazuka’s one-sided fight. In contrast to earlier, those at the back of the crowd were now at the front and vice versa. Sento stood by Shirei’s desk as he looked out the window, his hand resting on the corner of the woodtop, while Ugo just stood next to him. Shin didn’t mind as the crowd piled in around him. Eventually, he turned his head and looked out too.

**“Hopefully, that’ll curb this place’s delinquent problem.”**

Through the clear, undamaged glass pane of the window beside his desk, Shin watched as Urazuka, now back on his feet, rushed at Onimeshi, only to miss his chance at attack. Not because Onimeshi dodged, but because he punched him in the stomach with his free hand. As his breath escaped in the midst of impact, Urazuka was then grabbed by the wrist and spun around by Onimeshi. It was only a half-spin, however, as Onimeshi let go and let him fly into the back doors once more, this time from the outside. The impact pained Urazuka, his eyes blank as he let out a loud gasp of a groan as his back slammed against the metal panels and attached handles below the shattered glass of the doors.

**“Until then, this cesspool will remain as it’s recently been: a near-microcosm of the night battles plaguing our city.”**

Even as the fight reached its unseen conclusion, Shin watched, glancing down with indifference while the others around him watched with intent and excitement. After seconds of immobility as he observed, Shin closed his eyes and sighed, then opening them again with boredom.

**“Even so…”**

********

The day passed by quickly for Shin. Before he knew it, the bell signaling the end of the final period rang, playing the ever-familiar tune of Westminster Chimes over the intercom. By that point, the yellow sky of the morning hours had morphed back into a blue tint, lighter near the horizon and darker near the upper reaches of the atmosphere with scattered clouds giving off a yellowish-white balance. A true indication of mid-afternoon, alongside the analog clock on the tower in the middle of the front entrance positioned at 3:00.

Back inside the building, few of the students inside dispersed in the hallways outside class 3-A, all walking away from the glass shards that remained on the vinyl tile flooring from earlier in the day. Shin was among these students, looking down at the ground as he carried his bag by his side. He didn’t look down in the dumps, or even exhausted. It was just a glance down, looking as if he didn’t really want to partake in contact with any other human beings for the rest of the day. A solitary glance, one could say.

**“Despite the delinquency and unwanted attraction, there’s still one thing that makes attending Sadameicho, and even living in this dangerous Tokyo, completely worth it.”**

As Shin approached the main stairwells heading up to the roof and down to the front courtyard, someone ran up behind him. Their footsteps were swift, louder than Sento’s tiptoes when he surprised Shin, but not as obvious as Utsugi’s. Besides, they didn’t need their footsteps to grab the ignorant Shin’s attention. Their feminine voice took care of that.

“Incoming!”

A mere second after the cry, the mystery pursuer’s right hand came forward and slapped Shin on the small of his back, just above his posterior. Shin suddenly looked up and let out a quiet shriek of surprise and hurt through his clenched teeth, stepping forward faster than he had. He eventually came to a stop as quickly as he started, gasping for breath as he looked back down at the ground.

“Guess who?”

The pursuer shortly after revealed themselves, their head poking out from behind Shin. It was another female classmate, wearing the same outfit as all the rest. She had short, bright red hair that went down to her neck with sideswept bangs angling to her right; yellow eyes, her winking expression making only the left visible; a pair of pink lips curved into a toothy smirk; and B-cup breasts that were small but in no way made her come off as flat-chested. Shortly after her playful greeting to Shin, she giggled softly under her breath.

After catching his breath from the impact, Shin raised his head and looked back at the redhead behind him, not so much surprised as he was merely startled. “Muchise, please don’t do that!” He turned his head back, glancing off to the side with a frustrated pout. “There are other ways to greet me, you know…”

“Yeah, I know,” Muchise replied, moving out from behind Shin with her hands behind her back. With both eyes closed, she stepped forward with playful grace and bent forward, turning her head as she looked up at Shin. “It’s just that I _like_ greeting you that way!”

Shin rubbed the back of his head, glancing down at Muchise as he blushed and sheepishly smiled. “ _That_ excited to see me, huh?”

“Yep!” Muchise said with a nod. She winked and grinned at Shin once more, her playful giggle accompanying that familiar expression.

After getting their opening banter out of the way, Shin and Muchise resumed their walk down the halls, this time together. Before long, they reached the school’s main stairwells, lit only by the sun shining in from the windows. Several students loitered around the staircase leading up from the ground floor, silently talking amongst themselves. One pair chatting near the staircase were schoolgirls that appeared to be in their senior year. The first had long maroon-brown hair going down to her mid-back with a salmon pink headband, hot pink eyeshadow, and a sizeable bust, her arms crossed as she looked down at her companion; a shorter girl with wavy light brown hair done up in a ponytail by a purple ribbon and a slightly smaller chest, her knees bent and her hands intertwined as if she were begging for something. On the opposite side of the staircase was another group, this time of multiple boys with dark hair and spiked hairstyles. One of them led the conversation for the listeners, among whom was Urazuka, badly beat up with a crutch under his left arm. More students passed by the stairwell in the likewise sun-lit space of the main halls, and other students headed down to the main ground, albeit in a much lesser amount.

“It really _has_ been a while since we’ve last seen each other, hasn’t it, Muchise?” Shin asked.

“Yeah, definitely! It’s felt like _forever_.” Muchise let out a sigh of faux exhaustion. “But that’s what happens when you’re busy with school stuff, extracurriculars and whatnot.”

“I’d imagine. Hey, are you still with the track team?”

“You better believe it!” Muchise brought her hand, formed into a fist, up to her chest as she started marching down the stairs. “I’m one of their best runners, after all!”

“Their number one runner?” Shin asked with a hopeful smile as he walked alongside her.

Muchise sighed in disappointment. “Sadly, no. Utsugi’s still got me beat out _there_.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll be able to surpass her someday.”

Muchise gasped in delight, her eyes sparkling as turned the corner of the stairwell with Shin, holding up her other fist. “Really? You mean it?”

“Of course,” Shin said with a nod. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Muchise lowered her head, her fists twitching as she let out a muffled squee of joy that built itself up with every second. The result of that buildup was a loud cheer. “All right!” Muchise leaped forward, pumping her fist into the air as Shin continued walking at his normal pace and the students at the bottom of the stairwell looked at her excited pose, basking for a brief second in the sunlight above the bottommost staircase. “It’s settled! I’m gonna try my best at today’s meet, better than ever before!” As she spoke, her right foot, the one thrust forward in her leap, landed on one of the steps at the midpoint of the flight, and with that she quickly ran down, one step per step, until she reached the bottom, running forward a few more before twirling around with her hands behind her back to face Shin, still walking down. “And _then_ I’ll be our number one runner for sure!”

“That’s the spirit.”

Muchise giggled again, grinning as she did but with both eyes closed this time. She opened them right after as she looked back up at Shin. “I’m gonna head off and get changed for the meet now. See you later, Shin~.” She brought her hand up and waved to him, winking once more.

Shin raised his hand in turn and lightly waved to Muchise. “See you, too. Have fun.”

Muchise giggled one last time as she turned around and ran off with a beaming grin on her face, the other students at the stairwell still watching her. It was around that time that Shin reached the bottom as well, standing still as he watched Muchise depart. On his face was a smile that was no longer sheepish, but relaxed and happy.

**“Muchise Yokoshima. The most popular girl at Sadameicho, the closest thing this dump has to a ‘school idol’, and above all else, my longtime childhood friend.”**

Muchise jogged down the hall, past the entrance to the back courtyard that was shoddily cordoned off with red tape forming an X, the broken glass from the damaged doors uncleaned. She took care to avoid the mess, but in doing so accidentally bumped into another female student, one with short brown hair, with one portion done up into a side ponytail with a ribbon. The girl stopped and gave Muchise a look of slight offense. Muchise also stopped and turned to the girl, apologizing to her with a few words and a small bow, hands pressed together and her head nodding downwards. The other girl shook her head and gave Muchise a few words of her own, smiling at her now. Muchise nodded in reply, then continuing her run and waving back at the girl. She looked over and raised her hand back in farewell.

**“You could even say that she’s my _best_ friend, even though our personalities are completely different. A classic case of ‘opposites attract’.”**

Meanwhile, Shin headed over to the shoe lockers. He was the only one there in his aisle, the end closest to the front doors highlighted by the broken glass also from the earlier fight. Having slipped out of his uwabaki, he opened the door of the cubby, bearing his Japanese-written name 木塚心, and pulled out the pair of brown shoes he arrived in. He brought them down to the ground, slipping his left foot into the corresponding shoe, and then doing the same with the right.

**“She’s super expressive and as friendly as could be, even to someone as antisocial as me.”**

Out in the back of the school, at the edge of the corresponding courtyard just in front of the gym building, several female students stood around in what appeared to be a mixture of wait and preparation. Some stood around, while others did stretches. A girl with long black hair was doing tricep stretches, one arm behind her head with the other reaching up and touching her elbow. Another with short brown hair squatted down and stretched her hamstrings, one leg bent while the other was stretched out to the side. A third, who happened to be Utsugi, did shoulder stretches. But regardless of what they did individually, all the girls wore the same uniform: red jackets with stripes running down the sides of their arms and the standard red buruma that came with all gym uniforms, as well as white kneesocks and tennis shoes. An older woman in her mid-30s with dark brown hair tied in a ponytail and glasses, however, wore pants that matched the tracksuit top as opposed to the buruma. While in the middle of their various actions, someone approached them, and they all turned to them. Utsugi had a pout on her face, compared to the others’ mixed bag of either indifference or joy.

**“And she’s got all the appeal my admirers _lack_. She knows how to be caring without getting too attached; she’s playful without being invasive; she isn’t bossy, she isn’t a know-it-all, and she has that perfect balance of passion and calm to be truly cool. And it goes without saying that she’s as pretty as can be.”**

Standing before them was none other than Muchise. She opted not to wear any footwear besides her tennis shoes, laced up in the standard manner. Her hands rested on her sides, just above the top edge of her buruma. She remained standing with confidence, her tracksuit jacket unzipped to reveal the middle portion of the gym T-shirt she wore underneath. After several seconds spent standing in her assertive yet relatively harmless pose, she opened her mouth slightly, that same toothy grin once more showing itself.

**“Plus, I’ve got a thing for redheads.”**

Eventually, the late afternoon passed by, until it was over and the early evening preparations for the eventual sunset went underway. Against the reddish-orange sky, the sun started to make its way down, between the Nakano Sun Plaza to the left and the Sun Cuore Tower to the right, with the mountains in the far west framing the horizon separating day from night.

**“All those reasons and more are why I love Muchise.”**

In those pre-dusk hours, Shin made his way back home, walking up the downslope in Nakano from which he came that very morning. His bag still over his shoulder, his jacket still on his back, and little change in expression from when he last left Sadameicho. Though his smile was gone, he was much less stressed out than he was when the end-of-school bell rang.

**“Why I want to be more than just close friends with her.”**

Suddenly, Shin felt a vibration in one of his pockets. Stopping momentarily before reaching his house, he put his hand inside his pants pocket and pulled out his smartphone, colored a sleek silver with a camera lens and retractable stand in back. Pressing a button on his phone, he looked down at the screen, displaying a text messaging format. The first of the only two blue message bubbles onscreen, with the text “六知世”, or “Muchise”, up at the very top, was the following:

奨励をサンキュー!

Thanks for the encouragement!

The second bubble, below the first, contained an image file that Shin accessed with another press of his thumb. The image enlarged, showing Muchise standing a few meters past the finish line of a dirt track. Her eyes were closed and her smile was wide and bright as she held up a gold medal in her hand for the camera. In the background, Utsugi was on her hands and knees, looking exhausted.

**“The two of us have known each other long. Long enough to move past that platonic phase and into something more romantic. I know it, and I’m certain she does too.”**

After looking at the picture for a few more seconds, Shin closed his eyes and put his phone away, the same glad smile he had before having returned.

**“The both of us know in our hearts that our connection is what makes life in this dangerous world worth living.”**

As he stashed his phone in his right pocket, Shin raised his hand, holding it at an angle across his chest.

**“That’s why I’ve decided…”**

His hand clenched into a fist, and at the same time his eyes opened, the confident gaze he wore transforming his smile from one of pride in Muchise to determination in something else.

**“Tonight, I’m going to confess to her!”**

********

Later that night, after returning home, Shin ate dinner with his family. In the moments following his arrival home, he switched into an off-white long-sleeved shirt with a red star on the center, and a pair of dark gray sweatpants. Sitting down at the same dining table he ate his breakfast at, in the same chair as usual, he quietly chewed on some of his meal, transported to his mouth with a pair of red chopsticks, and glanced down at the contents. The main dish was a steak of yellowtail, sitting half-finished on a rectangular plate in a pool the soy sauce it was cooked in. Surrounding the plate were four ceramic bowls. The black bowl, the outlier in color, contained miso soup with tofu and green and white rings of spring onion. Two of the remaining three white bowls contained vegetable-based side dishes; the larger had hijiki salad, while the smaller had pickled cabbage. The last bowl was one of brown rice, which Shin picked up and ate from after swallowing his previous bite. In comparison, his parents’ dishes were the same, while his little sister, now dressed in a pink shirt and purple pants and once again kneeling on her chair, was eating just a larger bowl of rice with a plastic spork. The TV was on in the background, but its volume was lowered, and still it wasn’t exactly intelligible, as his parents discussed over it.

“Mmm! I gotta tell ya, the new rice cooker works like a _charm_!”

“Didn’t you say that just yesterday?”

Shin blinked as he chewed on his rice, glancing over at his parents. His father pointed across the table at his mother with his own pair of chopsticks, while she just sat and took a bite of her meal as he resumed talking.

“I _might’ve_ , yes, but still, that’s how good it is!”

Shin’s mom then glanced at her husband, somewhat sternly. “So that means you’ll finally return the Yokoshimas’ rice cooker?”

His father closed his eyes and smiled nervously as faint sweatdrops appeared on his temple. “You mean right now? But we’re in the middle of eating, can’t it wait a little while?”

“It _can_ , but we should give it back before they get suspicious.”

After observing his folks’ conversation with his eyes, Shin closed them and swallowed his current bite, and then spoke up.

“I can take it back for you.”

The parents halted their discussion before they could even vocally continue it, both turning to Shin in surprise at his offer.

“You will?” his mother asked.

“Yeah,” Shin nodded with a smile, picking up the bowl of pickled cabbage and grabbing some with the chopsticks. “I’ll even save you the extra trouble and return it right after we eat.” He then popped the pieces of cabbage into his mouth.

“You sure about that, son?” his father asked in slight worry. “I mean, tonight’s battle is…”

“It’s fine,” Shin interrupted. “Our houses are just outside the quarantine zone, so it’s not like I’ll be in any danger.”

As he spoke, the TV screen, once again on the news, displayed a map of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, where a transparent red circle with a diagonal pattern placed over most of the northern and central portions of Nakano, with some of it in Nerima and Suginami, and other parts inching into Toshima and Shinjuku. On the center of the circle in equally red text was the phrase “遮断” or “Quarantine”.

“Alright, if you insist…” his father said, right away defeated.

His mother leaned in, putting one hand to her chest. “Just be careful out there, alright?”

Aika stuck her spork in the rice bowl and looked at Shin swiftly. “Yeah, Shin, come back safe!”

Shin set down the bowl in hand and smiled at all three of his family members. “Believe me, everyone, I will, so don’t worry!” He shot them all a pleasant, almost giddy grin; an antithesis to his earlier mood.

********

Before long, the dark blue skies of night once again overtook the city, the residential areas bearing no exception. It was then, following the conclusion of his dinner, that Shin once again stepped out of his house and onto the asphalt slope.

“I’m heading off!” he called out to those still inside his residence before strolling down the narrow street. It felt just like he was leaving the house for school, but with a myriad of differences. He was traveling upslope instead of downslope; it was night instead of early morning; he was dressed casually instead of in his school uniform; the black school bag slung across his chest was replaced with a brown paper bag with handles in his left hand, containing the rice cooker he was set to return; and contrary to a downward-glancing look of solemnity, he faced forward with a smile of subtle but sure confidence. As he moved forward, he took out his phone and glanced down at it for a few seconds, tapping several buttons with his thumb.

********

Elsewhere, mere moments later, another smartphone started vibrating. The pink cell, decorated with a few simple flower stickers, rested on the edge of a white marble countertop. The sink also built into the countertop, as well as the sounds of a showerhead turning off, made certain that the phone was in someone’s bathroom.

Muchise’s bathroom to be specific. Stepping out of the shower, her short red hair hanging free but sopping wet from her earlier douse, and completely naked to boot, she picked up the phone and looked down at it. Bringing the phone to chest level and tapping it with her thumb, she brought up her message log with Shin. The second-to-last message was a simple “どういたしまして。”, or “You’re welcome” to the thanks she sent earlier. As for the most recent, the new one that caught her attention…

炊飯器を返そうと来ています。今にも来られる

I’m coming over to return the rice cooker. I’ll be over soon.

Muchise smiled at Shin’s text, giggling softly under her breath. “Coming over this late, huh?” Without another word, she started typing up a response, using only her thumb as well.

********

Back on the upslope, at the topmost point where it was level, Shin had taken a pause from walking when Muchise’s return text finally arrived, popping up below his:

よし、またね〜！

All right, I’ll see you there~!

Shin smiled at the message, lowering his phone and putting it back in his pocket. “ _All right, now’s my chance!_ ” As he stashed his phone away, Shin held up his other hand, the one holding the bag, and clenched it into a fist, his confident expression taking on a greater air of determination.

********

Back at the Yokoshima residence, Muchise opened the door to her bedroom and switched the lights on, illuminating the white-walled, carpeted sleeping space. As for Muchise herself, she had gotten herself dressed in what were clearly indoor clothes. A high-cut pink tanktop that proved a slightly loose fit and showed off her midriff, a pair of dark blue hot pants, and no socks or other footwear to speak of. She took two steps beyond the frame of the door before stopping suddenly, blinking once and looking down at her top.

“Hmm…” She blinked again and looked up. “I should probably put on something cuter for when Shin comes.”

While in the middle of her musing, she resumed walking, removing her tanktop to reveal her black bra as she did so. Once it was off, she soon arrived at her dresser. It had a faux wood grain surrounding the outside, with four total drawers stacked atop one another. She pulled out the second drawer from the bottom with both hands, revealing a collection of neatly folded white and pink socks to the left, and two stacks of similarly folded T-shirts in the middle and to the right. At the top of the leftmost stack of shirts was one that was off-white and bore a red heart in the middle.

“Lucky me!” Muchise quietly exclaimed with a giggle as she reached out to grab the shirt. She lifted it out of the drawer gently, still smiling as she did.

But then, all of a sudden, a sound broke the silence within her room. A rough sliding sound, as if something was undone. Muchise’s smile faded with a blink as soon as she heard the sound, standing up and turning to face the wall opposite the door with a look of slight worry and a soft sigh of reaction.

Where Muchise’s gaze landed was one of her bedroom windows, between where her dresser sat and her bed, backed up against the wall. The window was open, one of the two panes shifted to the side. The evening wind blew into the room, making the white curtains rustle ominously. The faint sounds of swords clashing and gunfire in the far distance – signs of the nearby battle – only added to the intimidating atmosphere.

Muchise cringed as she stepped back, her eyes darting around the room as she turned to her left and looked around at the space between her dresser and the wall. “H-Hello?”

Someone then stepped into the bedroom through the window, their leg wrapped in a white stocking and their foot dressed in a sandal with magenta straps.

“Anyone there?” Muchise’s worry only increased as she turned around again, looking at her door and the wall adjacent, in further search of whoever entered her room.

Behind her, a hand gloved in black spandex reached into the open dresser drawer and took out a pair of socks.

“Whoever you are, get out before I call the cops on you!” Muchise looked back at the window with an angry glare at nobody, the hand still holding onto her shirt clenched into a fist.

“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option.”

Muchise gasped, her eyes shrinking in shock as she heard the womanly voice behind her. Before she could make any further moves, the trespasser standing behind her swiftly raised their hand and just as swiftly brought down several intricate loops of rope around her torso. With a single pull in the midst of the rope’s descent, it wrapped around Muchise’s torso in a classical Japanese shibari tie, her arms forced behind her back. Muchise grunted in pain as she was restricted, her B-cups bouncing within the confines of her bra. She looked back at her assailant with a mixture of fear and anger, eyes wide and teeth gritted tight. Just as she did, another figure appeared in front of her, swiftly as they brought their hand back in preparation to attack. Muchise turned her head back in frustration, and that’s when it came forward. The other trespasser’s arm, holding a ball of cloth in their palm, the size and basic shape of a potato. As the wad moved closer to her face, Muchise clenched her eyes shut and screamed sharply, hoping someone would come to rescue her at the last possible moment. She only had a second to let it out, as the makeshift gag made its way into her mouth…

********

Meanwhile, an index finger reached out and pressed the buzzer beside the Yokoshima house’s front door.

“Hey, Muchise, are you there?”

Standing there on the dimly lit front porch was Shin. Muchise’s house, where he had finally arrived, was a white two-story with a blue shingle roof situated near the end of an asphalt dead-end residential street. He held up the brown bag in his hand as he resumed speaking.

“I brought the rice cooker, just like I said I would. Can I come in and drop it off?”

Shin was met with silence. Nothing beyond the blowing of the wind and the faintest sounds of the battle further into Nakano. It took only a few seconds for his calm demeanor to turn impatient. Not an angry impatient, but a concerned impatient. Grunting softly, he spoke again.

“Are you in there, Muchise? I came all the way over here, the least you could do is acknowledge that!” Shin brought his hand up and knocked on the door, using the knuckles just above the back of his hand to make a louder noise than he would have with those on his fingers. “Come on, Muchise, open up! I know you’re in there! You just can’t leave me hanging on like this! Muchise! Answer me, Muchise!”

For all his begging, Shin got no response. His voice was easily heard through the front door, but no one was there to hear it. The genkan and foyer beyond it were in the dark, not a single light switched on anywhere else either. The only light on was upstairs, in Muchise’s bedroom. The door remained open, but the window was now shut. Muchise was gone. All that was left were the two shirts, messily dropped onto the floor. The pink tanktop was closer to the bed, while the white tee was right in front of the open doorway. The heart insignia faced the only open exit, the folded cloth malforming it into a fractured shape.

After his futile cries for Muchise came to a stop, Shin moved his hand back, his mouth curved into a sad smile as his eyes started to puff up in further melancholy, tears forming in the corners. His hand’s grip on the brown bag loosened, soon leading to it falling to the ground. A thud rang out from the rice cooker inside making impact with the concrete porch through the paper between them. With nothing in hand, Shin stood before Muchise’s door, quietly sobbing as the porch light flickered.

“M-Muchise… Please answer me, Muchise…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Sun Cuore Tower is a 26-story high-rise skyscraper in Nakano, Tokyo that was constructed in 1994. It primarily houses commercial businesses and residential developments.  
> 2\. The Nakano Sun Plaza is a 21-story skyscraper in Nakano, Tokyo that was constructed in 1973. It primarily serves as a hotel, but is also used as a concert hall. It is best known for its architectural design, which takes on the form of a right triangle.  
> 3\. Uwabaki is another name for indoor slippers worn at schools in Japan.  
> 4\. Ahoge is the Japanese term for a cowlick, typically one associated with foolish female characters.  
> 5\. Sarashi is the term for a long strip of cloth, usually thick cotton, worn around one’s lower torso. This material is common among yakuza and delinquents.  
> 6\. Bokken is another term for a wooden sword carved in the likeness of an actual katana.  
> 7\. When Shin said “To prevent those from happening further…”, by “those”, he was referring to the delinquents and transfers out, not the reasons why others haven’t transferred.  
> 8\. The two schoolgirls conversing by the stairs as Shin and Muchise come down from the upper floor of the school were previously featured in Jam-Orbital’s piece “Study Buddies”. http://fav.me/da5hnwk   
> 9\. Buruma means athletic bloomers.  
> 10\. Shin and his parents’ dinner setup is known as “Ichijyu Sansai”, which is one soup, three dishes, and rice. The contents of Shin’s in particular are fairly straightforward, but hijiki salad is a dish consisting of hijiki seaweed and other vegetables, such as carrot and Konnyaku.  
> 11\. Shibari is a type of decorative Japanese bondage that emphasizes the breasts.  
> 12\. The genkan is a traditional Japanese entryway, where residents and visitors alike take their shoes off.


	3. Act 2

The next day arrived without incident. It was late morning, groggy skies abounding with breaks in the clouds allowing the sun to provide multiple silver linings just outside the window next to Shin’s desk in Class 3-A. He sat at the desk quietly, silently; his hands in his lap, his shoulders dropped, and his gaze aimed nowhere in particular. The depressed air he gave off was enough indication that what his eyes were on and where they were aimed didn’t matter in the slightest. But it wasn’t like he was out of it in the middle of class. It was during one of the breaks in-between periods, so his detachment didn’t have as much effect on his studies as it would have minutes earlier. Additionally, the closest conversation to reach his ears wasn’t a lecture, but a conversation between two students.

“Hey, did you hear anything about last night’s battle?”

“Nope.”

“Damn, you _too_? I’ve been askin’ ‘round all day and I hadn’t heard jack about it, not one bit!”

That conversation, however, was soon superseded by a closer voice, directed right at Shin.

“Still down about last night, huh?”

“Ah?” Shin gasped as he snapped out of his daze, looking forward. Standing on the other side of his desk, across from him, were Sento and Ugo. Sento’s right hand rested on Shin’s desk as he looked down at him with a more concerned glare than normal, while Ugo just stood free with his hands in his pockets and his eyes aimed down likewise. After looking at them for a second, Shin gave a simple, monosyllabic response. “Yeah.”

“I feel ya, man,” Sento replied, raising his head with closed eyes of sympathy. “Going to confess your love only to be met with silence really _does_ suck.”

“It happens to the best of us,” Ugo replied with a smile. “So I wouldn’t be _too_ hard on myself.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Shin nodded and looked up at the both of them, a smile having returned to his face but his eyes slightly strained from his aimless gaze. “Besides, it’s not like it was my only chance. Next time I see her, I’ll confess to her, no problem!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Shin blinked at Sento’s remark, his smile fading into a quizzical pursing of lips. “What are you talking about?”

Sento looked off to the side, as if he were averting Shin’s gaze, while Ugo glanced at him. “Oh, nothing. Just a rumor.”

“A rumor?”

“Yeah.” Sento nodded, turning back to Shin. “That Muchise was kidnapped.”

Shin gasped at the news, his eyes widening and pupils shrinking in shock. “K-Kidnapped?”

“Most likely,” Ugo replied. “She hasn’t shown up at all this morning, which is pretty suspicious. It’s unlike her to be late or get sick.”

“Plus the night battles make running away _impossible_.” Sento lowered his head as he spoke.

“Which leaves only one possibility: she was kidnapped.”

“And by the _yakuza_ , no less!” Sento exclaimed as he shot his head up, as if he only lowered it to begin with to emphasize his exclamation.

Shin let out a small, quiet shriek of surprise behind his closed lips, but didn’t react any farther beyond the upset demeanor he already wore upon hearing the news. In fact, he calmed down to a degree. His eyes narrowed and his pupils then grew, relaxing themselves as Shin spoke again.

“Why the yakuza?”

“C’mon, man, you living under a rock or somethin’?” Sento pulled himself back, his hand leaving Shin’s desk and finding its place on his hip. “Those unsolved serial kidnappings from the past month, it’s no coincidence they happened so close to the battles!” He shook his head as he spoke, bringing both his hands up and purposefully tensing them. “Plus she lives right on the edge of last night’s quarantine zone! That just _screams_ she was abducted by the yakuza!” He swiftly jerked his arms down to either side for emphasis.

“Mm-hmm,” Ugo nodded.

“But what if it _wasn’t_ them?”

“Ah?”

“Hm?”

Sento and Ugo looked down at Shin as he spoke up.

“Let’s assume she _was_ kidnapped like you said. What _then_? All the other kidnappings, they took place out in the open, in alleys and parking lots. Muchise was _home_ when she disappeared, I’m certain of it! It doesn’t make sense that they’d kidnap her all the way from there! It just _doesn’t_!” Shin raised his head, looking right at Sento and Ugo with eyes strained with tears and worry, his voice growing slightly more shaken with each sentence. “There’s no way Muchise could be a casualty of the Great Yakuza War! No way at _all_!”

Shin’s teary exclamation brought a pause to the between-period activity of the classroom, the few students who bothered to stick around looking right at him as he faced Sento and Ugo with heavy insistence. Even some of his admirers looked at him as if he had two heads, Chikuru still sitting in her seat and Shirei having stopped on the way to hers. They all looked at Shin, backlit by the open window, while the others around it had the curtains for the most part shut, letting in just enough light to make things visible.

After a few seconds’ worth of silence, Sento broke it as he turned away from Shin’s desk and put his hands in his pockets. “Whatever, man. I doubt it was anyone _besides_ the yakuza, but hey, if that’s what you wanna believe…” He walked away from the desk casually.

Ugo slowly followed behind Sento, glancing back at Shin with closed eyes and a gentle smile. “Don’t worry about it, Kizuka. I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually.” With that, he turned his head back and resumed following Sento.

Shin sighed through his teeth as he lowered his head and slunk back into his seat in exhaustion. “Yeah…” That was all he could say as he sat back and glanced down, his eyes even more strained from the mix of negative, fearful emotions he mustered in the past minute.

**“Five years ago, the yakuza clans of Tokyo, known for their fiercely competitive natures, reached a breaking point in their coexistence.”**

He could just picture it in his head. The breaking point itself. A map of Tokyo City and its 23 special wards, outlined in white against a black background, with thin multicolored lines representing streets spanning all across the map. Many limited themselves to within a specific ward, but some crossed borders. As the lines formed themselves, the inter-ward courses soon overtook the intra-ward. Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, violet, brown, shades and tints of those colors, all more prone to hopping wards as opposed to keeping to themselves.

**“What began as a dispute over delivery routes for their drug trade soon morphed into an all-out war over territory and who was most fit to rule.”**

After that, came the breaking point. All of a sudden, the multi-colored routes disappeared. The wards and their outlines returned to their normal selves, but the insides of each ward took on the colors of the lines that were there before. Some wards were one solid color, while others had multiple colors within them, a few of which leaked over from adjacent wards. In the same flash that turned the routes into territories, the background gradually started to lighten, from pitch black to a dark blood red. But that was not all. Silhouettes, in the image of various yakuza, appeared. Some donned suits, while others appeared to be in casual garb. Some wielded swords, while others held up guns, be they handguns or submachineguns. One silhouette even held up a bat as if they were a sportsman. The silhouettes were not black, but transparent. The portions of their selves that laid over the Tokyo map darkened the territories and boundaries into shades of their original colors, while the portions over the background lit it up to a brighter red with yellow and white spots, like lava about to spew.

**“Criminal syndicates both large and small partook in this nocturnal city-wide conflict, which then became known as…”**

And then, a piece of white calligraphic text laid itself over both the transformed map and the silhouettes surrounding it:

暴力団大戦

**“The Great Yakuza War.”**

Soon after came another set of imagery. Various skylines of Tokyo, from different wards. Some faced toward the mountains, others toward the sea. One fading into another without any sudden movement. The periphery of the mental slideshow was darkened, the only light coming from inside yet another set of silhouettes. Only this time, the silhouettes were in motion. One man stood in the middle, a gun in his right hand. He was rushed at from the right by another, running fast as he prepared to throw a punch. The man dodged to the right, the attacker missing his mark as his fist dropped down and his legs slowed to a crawl. The perfect time for the man to shoot him in the side. As the victim keeled over onto the ground, he disappeared upon impact. Just then, another attacker, this time bearing a sword, rushed at the man from behind. The man turned around and jumped back before the second assailant’s blade could reach him, and raised his gun to fire at him. But the swordsman dodged the bullet and resumed rushing at the gunman. In his shock, he was struck down by the swordsman right away, impaled in the gut. He too disappeared into nothingness as the blade was pulled out. Immediately, the swordsman stepped back as another man, with a larger build and a dagger in hand, rushed at him directly. With a swing from the side, the dagger was knocked out of the man’s hand, but that didn’t stop him. He threw his now-empty fist at the swordsman’s face, knocking him off balance and forcing him to drop the sword. He immediately regained his footing, though, and started punching at his opponent also. For several seconds, they punched at each other, dodging the blows that were given. The only pair of blows to make contact, the last pair, was the touching of their fists. They stepped back, about to continue, only for the swordsman to be cut down from behind by another, rushing past him without a second thought. The dagger-man stuttered in shock before the mystery assailant cut him down as well. Spinning around the second’s falling corpse as both disappeared behind him, the final silhouette faced forward, rushed forward, raised his sword and then brought it down. After that, everything was white.

**“But the participants of the War only cared about land, money, drugs, and above all else the thrill of the battles. Human trafficking and the like were the furthest things from their minds. For _them_ to be behind Muchise’s disappearance, let alone all the others… It’s just nonsensical!”**

Back to reality, the white shrunk back into the sun outside the window, which in turn hid beneath yet another passing cloud. The groggy appearance of late morning had disappeared, now replaced by the dull azure sky of mid-afternoon, though still peppered with clouds reminding of what came prior.

**“Still, it’s one thing to argue over who did it.”**

Shin glanced outside the window at the partly cloudy skies, disinterested in his surroundings. Focused on his prior thoughts, of Muchise and the Great Yakuza War.

**“It’s another to just ignore everything altogether.”**

“Hey, Shiiiiiin~!”

The sing-song greeting caught Shin’s attention. He blinked once and turned his head to face who he knew lied on the opposite side of his desk this time.

His admirers. All five of them, facing Shin. Yukisa stood at the middle of the desk with her hands on her hips, wearing the same aloof expression on her face she always did. Shirei stood to her right, her right hand reached behind and lightly touching the top of her chair; and Utsugi stood to her left, her hands behind her back as she bounced on the balls of her feet and smiled. Chikuru stood behind Utsugi, smiling also, and Akari was directly to Shin’s right, looking at him as he greeted the group as a whole.

“What do you want?”

“Hmph.” Yukisa grunted as she raised her head with closed eyes. “You know, it’s really rude of you to just _ask_ that without even saying hello.” She opened her eyes, glancing down at Shin. “I swear, where are your manners?”

“Hey, cut it out, Yukisa,” Shirei spoke up as she turned to the blond class rep. “Now’s not the time to be lecturing him.” She looked back at Shin. “Not after what happened to Muchise.”

“Yeah,” Utsugi agreed with a nod. “His longtime friend vanishing without a trace has _got_ to be a shock to the system.”

“Indeed~,” Chikuru chimed in as she made her way past Utsugi and Akari, forcing the latter to step aside while the former got out of the way with a surprised yelp. Once at the edge of Shin’s desk, Chikuru put her hands behind her back and bent forward, her breasts bouncing. “But at least he has _us_ around to cheer him right back up.”

“Is _that_ what this is about?” Shin closed his eyes and sighed. “Look, if you don’t have anything _new_ to tell me, then leave. I’m not in the mood for any “cheering up” right now.”

“Maybe,” Akari said softly, looking down at Shin with concern. “But we’d hate for you to mope around as you are.”

“Which is why we’ve decided…”

As Yukisa spoke again, Akari blinked once, glancing over at her as she reopened her eyes.

“…you should forget about Yokoshima.”

Her words, spoken through her soft pink lips, cut through to Shin. He gasped sharply, his eyes widening and his pupils shrinking as they did hours earlier. But unlike the news of her kidnapping, this reveal came as less of surprise and more of disbelief. The pounding heartbeat inside his chest that occurred in that instant did nothing to lessen his shock.

“F-Forget… M-Muchise… What?”

“You heard me.” Yukisa took her right hand off the respective hip and turned her head slightly, looking off to the right. “It’s unhealthy for you to dwell on her disappearance, especially when there are more important things to worry about.”

“Yeah, it’s not like that’s gonna bring her back or anything,” Utsugi commented.

Shirei bought her hand up and adjusted her glasses, the light shining in through the window reflecting off of them. “And even then, the chance that she _will_ be found is next to none at the moment.”

“It’s rough, Shin. We all know that.” Akari closed her eyes and lightly bowed. “But it’s the best option for all of us regardless.”

“So come on, sweetie, let’s turn that frown upside-down!” Chikuru gently squatted down next to Shin’s desk, bringing her hand up towards Shin’s left cheek, slightly hollowed from the lingering shock. “All those pesky worries about your little girl-friend will be gone before you know it~.” After a slow and steady approach, the tips of Chikuru’s fingers made contact with Shin’s cheek.

And that was enough. The moment he felt the touch, he snapped out of his frozen gaze of shock. If his eyes weren’t open as wide as they could go, they would have widened even more. His teeth clenched on instinct as he sharply inhaled through them, creating a whistling sound akin to a very high-pitched shriek of terror.

“Huh?” Chikuru blinked once at Shin’s sudden reaction, but before she could so much as ask him what was wrong, Shin made his own move. His left hand pressed against her face and pushed her away, the well-endowed girl yelping as she fell backwards onto the floor. As Utsugi side-stepped Chikuru’s fall and Akari backed up likewise, Shin got out of his seat and bolted. Grunting in panic, he made a rush across the rows of desks between the windows and doors, heading straight for the exit.

“Hey!” Yukisa called out as she turned to face the running Shin. “Kizuka, get back here and apologize for what you’ve done this instant!” She emphasized the last word as she pointed down at Chikuru. “Hey, Kizuka! I’m talking to you!”

“It’s no use, Yukisa,” Shirei said as she put her hand on the blonde’s shoulder. With half-lidded eyes and a wry yet worried grin, she looked at where Yukisa’s eyes laid just as those same eyes moved over to Shirei. “He won’t be coming back for a while.”

The five girls all looked at the open door at the back of the classroom with varying but present degrees of concern, while other students loitering around after-hours looked in more ambiguous intent. Shin was no longer in the classroom, the faint sounds of his footsteps heard from just outside the hall. His schoolbag remained hung by his desk, as if he forgot it. But as far as everyone knew, whether he left it behind on accident or on purpose, he didn’t care. Not now.

**“I had no idea how to react.”**

Several minutes passed following Shin’s departure, and in that time he had managed to go quite the distance. He had left Sadameicho behind, and was now headed north, on one of the two asphalt sidewalks running alongside Namiki Avenue. The gingko trees separating the sidewalk from the street were mostly bare, though a few stray leaves littered the edges of Shin’s path. Still clad in his school shoes, he showed no sign of stopping anytime soon.

**“The pressure of their request was just too much for me to bear.”**

Shin gasped for breath with every one or two steps, inhaling and exhaling heavily as the slightly chilly air made his breath only barely visible. His eyes strained, on the verge of tears. After several more seconds, without so much as a pause, he clenched his teeth and eyes shut, a whimper escaping through as the tears started taking form in the corners of his eyes.

**“I wanted anything but to toss away all my memories of Muchise, but refusing outright to their faces was sure to open a whole other can of worms.”**

Minutes later, Shin had entered the Shibuya ward, specifically the Sendagaya neighborhood. A narrow one-way street served as that area’s leg of his frantic sprint, free of vehicles and pedestrians. As Shin dashed through the desolate passage, bathed in shadow contrasting the orange early evening sky above, he passed multi-story buildings decorated with tiny ceramic tiles on his left, and a metal fence with an open gate on his right. Hanging next to the gate was a sign that read “歴史的コールドカットマナー”, or “Historic Coldcut Manor”.

**“So I ran. I ran from them and didn’t look back, not once.”**

Even later, he had made it back to Nakano, crossing the same bridge over the Kanda River he took on his route to school every morning. Only this time, he ran on the asphalt street instead of either sidewalk. To his left, standing on the sidewalk, was a couple in their mid-20s, the black-haired man wearing a white polo and black pants while his brown-haired girlfriend was dressed in a pink-and-black striped top and black miniskirt. They stood against the baby-blue railing and looked at the graffiti put on one of the stone walls bordering the river the previous morning, the man even pointing at it. However, some of the text was haphazardly sprayed over with black paint, with two new characters drawn over part of the edit job in the same red paint as before. Now, it read the following:

冬空は死んだ！

The Fuyuzora are dead!

**“I ran as far as my legs could take me, plus another several hundred meters more.”**

Eventually, Shin’s legs gave out after minute upon minute of running. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath in exhaustion as thin trails of tears ran down from either eye. His arms hung by his sides, gently swinging back and forth. Seconds later, as his arms swung forward, Shin hunched over onto the ground. His head tapped the pavement as his sigh suddenly shifted into a choked cry, while his arms bent and his hands balled themselves into fists.

**“But as far as I was from the problem, the physical source of my anguish, I couldn’t escape my thoughts. The frustrations that made me run in the first place.”**

For the next minute, Shin remained in that position. Looking down at the ground directly in front of him, whimpering softly as he fought back the urge to cry, in a position not exactly fetal but just as pathetic. He felt closer to the ground than he ever had before, and not just in the literal sense.

In addition, his inner monologue no longer bore the sense of calm it had before. It was shaky. It was vexed. It was filling with emotion leaking in from his external panic.

**“Why isn’t anyone taking this seriously? Hell, how could they _not_ take this seriously? The only halfway decent girl in school disappeared off the face of the earth, and they’re treating it like it’s no big deal! The mere product of a damn rumor mill! And the things they said…”**

Just then, two images flashed into his mind. They were intimidating images bathed in a bright light that rendered them near-monochrome, that appearance failing to make the situation better. The first was of his two peers, Sento and Ugo. Sento was at the forefront, turned slightly towards Shin’s inner gaze but glancing directly at it, a cocky smirk on his face as his hands rested in the pockets of his jacket-free uniform. Ugo was at more of a distance, but his expression wasn’t really concerning. A dour frown and a fixed gaze, as if he were staring directly into Shin’s innermost being with his black-irised eyes.

**“‘She’ll turn up eventually’?”**

The next image was of his admirers. Yukisa stood in front of the others with her arms crossed, her mouth curved into a disgusted scowl, and her eyes glancing straight at Shin as if it were a death glare. Only slightly further away to her left were Utsugi and Shirei. The former had her hands behind her back as she leaned in, only her energetic gaze and smile were replaced by a stare and smirk of menace. The latter, meanwhile, also shared that evil stare and smirk, only Shirei’s grin wasn’t toothy like Utsugi’s, and she had one hand on her hip while the other was positioned at her mouth as if she was ready to laugh haughtily at him. Behind those two was Chikuru, her eyes gleaming mischievously and her mouth curved into a wicked smile as she held her hands at chest level, palms facing forward and fingers curved inward like she was ready to pounce. And behind Yukisa, to the blonde’s right, was Akari. She was turned to the side, but her glance was at Shin also, and her expression did not look the least bit peaceful.

**“‘You should forget about her’?”**

Those images kept Shin trembling, his body twitching notably every few seconds in comparison to the more common subtleties. Before long, his fists tightened, squeezing the air trapped inside them as his inner frustrations increased.

**“How can you be so _sure_ of that? How can I even _think_ of doing that? Just… _how_!?”**

The evening sun was far from setting completely, but it got later, and its light illuminated the stucco wall to Shin’s right. His shadow was projected onto the surface, the reflection of his cowering form reaching all the way to the top. It trembled just as the real Shin did, keeping that position for minutes on end. But then, it changed. The shadow’s arms straightened as its upper body lifted itself off the ground, staring down at the asphalt it was in close contact with mere moments ago.

**“Am I the only one who cares? The only one who thinks there’s something wrong with my childhood friend, my high school crush, getting abducted, tortured, possibly _killed_ by whoever did this? For whatever reason? It’s just not _right_ , dammit!”**

The real Shin was in that same position, but with different intent. He wasn’t staring. His eyes weren’t even open. Tears leaked out from all four corners of his eyes, streaming down in greater capacity than before.

**“All these questions, all of them… They make me wanna…”**

Some of the tears even dripped off of his cheeks, silently splashing onto the pavement. His whimpering continued, his mouth open just enough to show his clenched teeth.

**“I just wanna…”**

Eventually, the tears slowed to a halt, and the trembling throughout Shin’s body ceased as well.

**“I just…”**

He inhaled deeply, and that was when it all came out.

Shin raised his upper body swiftly, no longer needing his arms to support his weight against the ground. Those same arms were raised as well, once more bent with his fingers cutting through his hair on either side of his head. To cap off his fluid show of despair, the crux of the bottled-up emotions he slowly let leak all throughout the past hour, was the verbal accompaniment.

“UUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGH!!!!”

A scream. Anguished and tinged with suffering. Aimed skyward by how his head tilted back in his pull away. Loud and piercing enough to make a flock of birds in one of the adjacent streets fly away in alarm. But that was only the beginning. After the scream fully escaped Shin’s lips, he brought his head and his arms back down, eyes clenched shut and overflowing with tears, as he let out something considerably more intelligible but just as brimming with pain.

“Muchise!! Dammit, why!? Why’d you have to disappear!? Why _you_? Why _now_!? Right when I was about to _confess_ to you!” As he shouted, Shin’s hands moved forward across the asphalt street as if he were crawling, in spite of not moving forward a single inch. He then hung his head down, his lips quivering and his tears dripping off his cheeks as his cries quieted. “Please come back, I beg of you…” He inhaled again and raised his head, his eyes shooting wide open as he looked up at the sky once more in sorrow. “You hear me!? Come back to me! Muchiseeeeeeee!!!”

After venting his discontent at no one but himself and the heavens as they neared the twilight hours, Shin dropped to the ground just as he started. Arms bent, head hung down as the tips of his longest hairs brushed against the asphalt he knelt down on, he resumed his pathetic position, reduced to mere sobs. He tried to hold some back, but others made themselves known in spite of his attempts. It was a difficult situation for Shin, in more ways than one. At least he was thankful that, in the barren dead-end street where he finally collapsed and broke down, no one was around to see him like this.

However, that quickly changed as a quiet pair of footsteps approached him, emerging from one of the houses and stopping just after making landing on the pavement.

“You know, if you wanted to say you were stopping by, you could’ve just buzzed in.”

The voice belonging to the sole witness of Shin’s post-traumatic aftermath was that of an older man. He spoke at a normal volume, soft with a high pitch that avoided the realm of nasal or aggravating. And yet it was enough to catch Shin’s attention.

The schoolboy gasped, his eyes opening wide at the familiar voice. He lifted his upper body off the ground with a push from one of his arms, kneeling still as he turned to face the bearer of the voice with red eyes, the tear streams present but halted.

“Mister Yokoshima…”

The dead-end street in Nakano that served as the end of Shin’s emotive dash across no less than three wards was the same dead-end street in Nakano where Muchise lived. The place where he fell to his knees and remained for several minutes was in front of Muchise’s house. And standing on the edge of the street, in front of the house, was Muchise’s father. Dressed in a dark brown suit bordering on grey, with a white undershirt and dark blue tie, he was slightly under 6’ tall, with short black hair whose line had receded enough to expose his entire forehead. A pair of round-frame eyeglasses sat on his face, characterized by a longer than average length, a broad jawline, and a pencil mustache split into two short strips jutting out from the middle of his philtrum.

Mr. Yokoshima turned slightly, removing one of his hands from his pockets and holding it out for Shin. “Why don’t you come inside, Shin? It won’t do you any good if you stay outside all night.”

Shin grunted softly as Yokoshima spoke to him, simply watching him for a few seconds as he processed his request. Once he figured out what he had to do, he brought up his arm and wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his school jacket. He brought his arm back down and gave his response with polite confidence.

“Yes, sir.” He then closed his eyes and gave him a small bow. “I would be more than happy to.”

********

“Here you are, boys.” The voice of an older woman accompanied the gentle thud of a wooden tray being set down on the laminate surface of a coffee table. On that tray were two cylindrical cups with ribbed edges, filled with a familiar, translucent green liquid. “Your tea.”

The woman who brought the tea to the table in question was in her early fifties, with faded red hair going down to the nape of her neck tied in a low, short ponytail and a face that, while smooth, bore enough lines to indicate aging. She wore a light tan sweater and a brown skirt going to her ankles, with a pink knee-length apron draped over it. She stood up straight, only to bow to the recipients of her tea.

“Enjoy.”

“Thank you very much, dear.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Yokoshima.”

Mr. Yokoshima and Shin both bowed to the woman, Yokoshima’s wife and Muchise’s mother, before she turned and walked off. As she did, both leaned forward, picked up their respective cups, one hand on the bottom and the other on the side, and started sipping on their tea.

The two men sat opposite each other in the Yokoshima household’s living room, on twin polyester couches with the dark brown coffee table in-between. Their jackets hung on the backs of their respective sofas, leaving them in their white dress shirts up top. The curtains for the windows facing out the front of the residence were pulled, blocking any natural light from entering. However, the overhead lights were not switched on either. In lieu of showering the room in a bright, almost artificial light, a lamp in the corner of the room, behind where Yokoshima sat, bathed the area in a softer glow, giving off a yellow tint that bordered on brown thanks to the surrounding color scheme. Apart from the departing footsteps of Mrs. Yokoshima, and the sipping of tea by both Shin and Mr. Yokoshima, the room was quiet, though there was still the occasional break in silence.

After taking his first sip, Yokoshima pulled the cup back from his mouth and sighed in soothing refreshment. “Ahhh…” He opened his eyes and looked at Shin. “So Shin, how’s the tea?”

Shin’s first drink was longer than Yokoshima’s, and he pulled back shortly after the question was posed, silently swallowing before speaking in turn. “It’s as good as always.”

“That’s good,” Yokoshima remarked with a gentle nod. “You just can’t hate Machise’s tea.” He took another sip.

“You really can’t,” Shin responded before taking another sip as well.

The two sipped their drinks together for a few more seconds, with Yokoshima as the first to stop again.

“By the way, thank you for returning our rice cooker yesterday.”

Shin swallowed as Yokoshima spoke, and nodded back. “Of course. D-Does it still work?” he asked with the slightest hesitation, looking down. “I kinda dropped it just before I left.”

Yokoshima sighed, somewhat charmed by Shin’s nervous response. “Yes, it works just fine.”

“Oh.” Shin nodded as he brought his head back up. “That’s good.” He took another sip.

Yokoshima chuckled softly as he took another sip.

Once more, both sipped together for a few seconds. This time, though, Shin pulled his cup back and swallowed first, posing the next topic of conversation.

“Say, Mr. Yokoshima, are you still with the Shibuya Police Force?”

Yokoshima pulled his cup back and nodded as he swallowed. “Mm-hmm. 35 years and counting.”

“That long, huh? Well, I was thinking maybe you could use your connections to launch an investigation into Muchise’s disappearance. Have them find her as a favor for all you’ve done for them.”

“Hmm…” Yokoshima grunted dubiously. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. My current commanding officer actually shelved all of our missing person cases. Claimed they would get in the way of our current backlog of paperwork.”

“That sounds pretty irresponsible.” Shin took another sip.

Yokoshima grunted and nodded again. “And even if I _did_ have the necessary pull, it wouldn’t be enough. Muchise disappeared here in Nakano, meaning it’s outside of Shibuya’s jurisdiction. There’s nothing my colleagues _or_ myself could even _do_.” He reached forward and set his cup of tea back down on the tray.

“Hmm.” Shin grunted in concern as he lowered his own cup, holding it in his hands.

“Still, if I had a choice in the matter, no consequences at all, I’d track down the bastards that took my daughter and rescue her, even if it meant killing them with my bare hands.” The moment he said “killing”, Yokoshima clenched his right hand tight, balling into a fist. But after a few seconds, it loosened up, and Yokoshima sighed. “But at _my_ age, I’d be no match for the yakuza, street punks, whatever _scum_ had the gall to run off with my Muchise…” Yokoshima glanced down at the ground, his shaking hand, with twitchy eyes welling up with tears, his mouth quivering with each twitch as he fought to hold as much of them back as he could. “I mean, who would even _do_ such a despicable thing?” He raised his head and looked right at Shin, his tears slowly streaming down his face in two thin, quiet trails. “Just tell me _who_ …?”

Shin looked up at Yokoshima’s face with his own concerned expression. Strained eyes took the place of tears and a partially open mouth emphasized the secondhand anguish he felt. Before now, he had thought he was the only one worried, the only one in despair over Muchise’s disappearance. But now, he could see that he _wasn’t_. It hurt him to see Muchise’s own father like this, in a demonstration of grief that was tamer than but as equally painful as his own from moments ago. For a few seconds, he just gazed into Yokoshima’s expression, his insides growing cold with familiarity at Yokoshima’s choked whimpers of sorrow. And once those seconds were up, he made the next move. He closed his mouth, closed his eyes, and lowered his head, the bangs hiding the shut orbs further.

“It’s not my business who kidnapped her.”

Yokoshima gasped, his brown eyes widening as he looked at Shin in disbelief.

“She was kidnapped, that’s all that matters.” He set his own tea cup down on the tray and stood from his seat. “And _because_ that’s all that matters… Mr. Yokoshima.”

As he rose, Yokoshima looked up at Shin, his lingering shock being slowly overtaken with anticipation of Shin’s next words.

“No matter _who_ has Muchise, I promise you…” Shin raised his balled-up right hand and brought it to his heart, holding it close. “I _will_ find her, and I _will_ bring her back. I bet my life on it.”

Shin’s expression had changed in that moment. With a confident gaze and a frown that was more steadfast than sad, his concern had all but disappeared, determination taking center stage in its stead. Yokoshima tried to process the sudden change in the boy he’s known for several years, stuttering as he stood up to face him.

“Uh… Th-That’s… I mean, I _can’t_ …” With a groan imbued with only the slightest frustration on what to say as all he had left, Yokoshima gave up on an on-the-dot response. He _did_ muster up one, though, as he raised his hands and placed them on Shin’s shoulders, the boy’s expression remaining calm as his elder broke out into a relieved, hopeful smile. “Thank you, Shin!” His gaze narrowed and his eyebrows slanted down as the remains of his tears started to dry. “Don’t let me down, all right?”

Shin grinned and nodded with a soft grunt. “I’ll try not to.”

********

“Thank you for having me over.”

“Anytime, Shin,” Yokoshima’s wife said.

“Don’t be a stranger, now!” Yokoshima shouted out with his improved attitude.

“Sure thing,” Shin replied as he departed the Yokoshima house, once more wearing his school blazer, looking back at the couple still inside as he moved past their porch and onto the asphalt street. As he walked away, Mr. Yokoshima looked out in Shin’s direction while his wife did the same, waving with closed eyes and a cheerful open mouth.

Night had fallen over Tokyo, the orange sky now replaced with a dark blue bordering on black that shaded what little clouds remained floating through the sky. Two lampposts brought light down onto the dead-end street where Muchise’s family lived, with Shin walking towards the one at the middle of the cul-de-sac, away from the soft light of the Yokoshimas’ residence and through the unlit path. With every step he took, the expression on his face remained the same: the determined stare of his promise, and the grin that followed.

**“In the end, my frustrations towards my peers evolved into something much more useful: determination. I don’t care what it takes, Muchise. I _will_ save you, no matter the cost.”**

But then, the determination faded. His eyes closed and his grin softened and widened, curving some as well. Now, he was blissfully uncertain.

**“Of course, that’s much easier _said_ than _done_.”**

He opened his eyes again after that little moment, the determination flowing back. He even opened his mouth a little to show off his teeth, making his grin stronger in spirit than before.

**“Still, I just gotta take baby steps, and before I know it, everything will be fine.”**

With that, Shin resumed the first leg of his trip back home, moving to the end of the barren street. Unaware that he wasn’t the only one out in that portion of the neighborhood tonight…

“Hey, Fuji, is that the boy you mentioned earlier?”

“The one I spotted on our way back last night? Yeah, it looks like him.”

Standing on the slanted roof of one of the houses opposite the Yokoshimas’ were the three masked women from two nights prior, in the very same getups they donned that late evening. The ponytailed and twintailed girls stood further down the roof’s slope, the former’s hands on her hips and the latter’s legs bent for balance. The long-haired woman stood further up, her back straight and her arms crossed.

“You said he approached her house just as you left, correct?”

“That’s right,” the twintailed girl, Fuji, responded with a nod. “He’s probably her boyfriend, at the very least a neighbor.”

“Oh, he must be _devastated_ , that she disappeared without a trace!” The ponytailed girl leaned back and remarked, almost sarcastically.

“Then how do you explain the look of confidence?” Fuji glanced at the ponytailed girl.

“Wha…” The ponytailed girl looked at her twintailed compatriot, surprised at her query. “Why are you asking _me_ that!?”

“The better question is, why are we even _here_?” the long-haired woman asked. “It’s unlike us to return to the scene of the crime.”

“Yeah, I _know_ , but I wanted to show Tazuna where we got our latest catch from!”

“And I thank you for that,” the ponytailed girl, Tazuna, replied. She let out a small squeal of excitement from behind her OTN mask. “I just can’t _wait_ to play with her some more~!”

In the time that the trio conversed, Shin had moved past the first streetlamp and entered the second, nearing the street that he would then take home. During his approach, a vehicle on that street approached the intersection with the cul-de-sac, its tires squealing to a stop upon arrival.

“Do you think he knows that _we_ did it, Mistress Nawa?” Fuji asked her long-haired partner.

“I doubt it,” Nawa replied as she uncrossed her arms and stuck one hand into her exposed cleavage. “We always cover our tracks well. He doesn’t know.” She took a paper fan out of her cleavage and flicked it open, revealing an alternating pattern of light and faded pink stripes radiating from the end like symbolic sunbeams. “And he _won’t_ find out.”

“Yeah, but…” Fuji looked back at Nawa. “What if he _does_?”

“Yeah,” Tazuna remarked, looking back also. “What _then?_ ”

“Then we’ll just have to silence him. After all…” Nawa lifted up her fan some, glancing down at the street below. “No one must _ever_ know of our operations.”

As she looked down at Shin’s assured departure from the dead-end street, Nawa’s amber eyes shone with an atmosphere beyond the sultry air from her typical half-lidded gaze and exposed magenta eyeshadow. This atmosphere was tinged with curiosity, but was above all else dead serious.

“Not a single _one_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Namiki Avenue, also known as Icho Namiki, is a thoroughfare in Tokyo’s Minato Ward that acts as the entrance to the Meiji Jingu Gaien gardens. The Avenue is best known for the gingko trees that line it on either side.


End file.
